Learning To Live Again
by idealskeptic
Summary: In the aftermath of "Mockingjay", Johanna Mason is lost with no one left she loves. A chance conversation with Gale, and his offer of help if she needs it, brings her to District 2. From there, they make their way to District 4 and then District 12. Both are outsiders looking in, can they find love and healing in each other? Definite story spoilers.
1. Chapter I

**Disclaimer:** All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

_This is a story of Johanna Mason and Gale Hawthorne. It's set post-Mockingjay so if you haven't read all three of Suzanne Collins' ridiculously amazing books and aren't in the mood for spoilers … this probably isn't the place for you. Enjoy!_

**LEARNING TO LIVE AGAIN**

Chapter I

I stand outside the drab office building in District 2 and try to work up the nerve to go inside.

I don't like this shy, skittish Johanna Mason that emerged in place of the bold, brash one. She is very irritating but she is what I have to work with for the time being.

I scowl at the wall and take a deep breath. What is the harm in going inside? After all, he'd said to let him know if I needed anything and I _do_ need something. Then again, the building does look suspiciously like the prison I was unlucky enough to be a guest at in the Capitol.

A sudden downpour decides things for me.

With a squeal of fright, I knock two people down on the way into the lobby. "Gale Hawthorne," I blurt out to the pink haired woman sitting behind the desk. "Now."

"I'm afraid I'll need to know your name, miss," she says in a voice that all but screams Capitol.

This is very much not a good turn of events. "Gale Hawthorne," I repeat, turning my back on her as I decide keeping an eye on the water is more important than her silly accent and hair. I hear her whisper something about an unstable woman into a phone. She's talking about me, that much is obvious, but I just hope she's talking to Gale and not whatever security the building has. If anything remotely resembling a Peacekeeper shows up, there will be problems.

"Johanna?"

That next squeal is one of relief and not fright. I turn away from the doors and find Gale as the elevator doors close behind him. I'm proud of the fact that I don't skitter right across the shiny floor and into his arms.

"She wouldn't give me her name, Mr. –" Gale holds up his hand and stops the woman. "It's fine," he tells her. "I'm done for the day, don't worry about her."

I eye the door to the outside warily, chewing my bottom lip. If he's done for the day, he's going outside. The fact that it is still raining does not bode well for me.

"Come on, Johanna," he says, suddenly at my side and offering me his hand. "We don't have to go outside to get to my apartment. I'll show you."

I take his hand, allowing the new Johanna to take the lead, and follow him out of the lobby and away from the pink haired woman I decided was probably related to President Snow. By walking a small hallway, climbing two sets of dimly lit stairs, and following another tiny hall, we finally arrive at what Gale says is his apartment. It's more like a single room with space enough for a bed, a chair, a table, and a tiny closet.

"Former Peacekeeper training center," he explains as I step inside after him. "Don't worry, they're all gone now. Are you hungry? Thirsty?"

I shake my head and sit down on the only chair after he sits on the end of the bed – he could reach both food and drink while sitting down. "Not yet. You said I could come to you if I ever needed anything, right?"

Gale nods, looking at his hands instead of me. "Yeah. What do you need?"

I briefly debate the best way to say it before I settle on just blurting it out. "Help. I need help. It's almost time for Annie to have the baby and I promised her I'd be there but," I pause to see if he's reacting at all yet – he isn't, "I haven't been able to take a proper shower or bath since, well, you know. So I need help."

I can see the confusion, surprise, and wariness in his dark eyes. "Help with what?" he asks slowly. "Going to Annie? Or taking a shower?"

I flail my hands around a bit. "Either. Both. I don't know. Just tell me what to do?"

He nods again and sighs as he stands up. "I'm hungry. Let's eat first then we'll move on to your other problems. Okay?"

We split a packet of dehydrated, tasteless noodles boiled in water and a bottle of juice. We don't talk while we eat. The old Johanna never had time for small talk and, happily, neither does the new Johanna. I'm not sure what I would have talked about with him anyway, not after what I'd already said I needed help with. As we finish our supper, I start to wonder if maybe he's stalling or just plain avoiding what I said. And then he surprises me.

"Bathroom's that way," Gale says, gesturing toward a door at the back of his apartment. "My soap doesn't smell girly, but you don't strike me as a girly-girl so it should be fine. Let's go."

"Go?" I repeat, gaping at him just a little.

He nods shortly. "Yeah, you said you need a proper shower or a bath. I'll help you do that. I won't let anything happen to you."

I blink at him. "You're going to take a shower with me?"

Nodding, Gale gestures toward the bathroom again. "Yes, Johanna. Only it'll have to be a bath, there's no shower. I can sit outside the door, inside the door, on the toilet, or be in the water with you. Whatever makes you feel safe enough to do what you need to do."

I narrow my eyes and try to figure out why he would do this for me. I can't, so I ask. "Why?"

"You asked for help, I'm helping." He finishes his explanation with a weary shrug.

I think about that for a minute and then do the first thing that comes to mind, I pull my shirt over my head and shimmy out of my pants. Standing only in a bra and panties, I walk into the bathroom. After so many months, I feel stupidly terrified of the sink and tub. I can only hope that the stupid part of the feeling was something like progress.

Gale leans around me and turns the faucet on to fill up the tub. "I figure, if we're going to District 4, a bath would be a good thing to start with since there will be a lot of water there," he explains, stepping back and pulling his own shirt over his head.

Old Johanna makes a brief appearance as she appreciates the chiseled planes of his chest and stomach. New Johanna chokes back a whimper when, in the mirror over the sink, she sees the pale, crisscrossing lines that scar his back. "Stay in here?" the combination of my personalities asks tentatively.

"Whatever you need," he answers simply.

What I need is for him to get in the water first. Thankfully, it only takes a small nudge from me for him to get the message. I feel weirdly better when he's standing in the bathtub, better enough to shed the last bits of clothes I have on. At least Johanna is still everything but modest. Once I'm naked, Gale held out his hands to me. Taking a deep breath and summoning the last shreds of courage I have, I take his hands and step into the water.

I don't get electrocuted. Always a good thing.

"Sit down, it's safe," Gale said, guiding me gently down.

Too terrified to do anything but listen, I let him move me. He ends up sitting behind me. It's a tiny tub, but there is no way I would ever tell him to move. I'm not sure why he does it, but he washes me. I don't have to do anything other than sit still and not panic while he rubs a soapy cloth over my body, massages shampoo into my hair, and carefully rinses it all off. Old Johanna abandons me again because all I can think about is how sweet it is of him to take care of me – nothing about the sexuality or irony of me being naked and him be next to naked in a tiny bathtub.

I'm just … grateful.

"Alright, up you go."

Released, I jump up and out of the tub all on my own. Gale follows and hands me towel that seems weirdly fluffy for the drab apartment. I wrap it around my shoulders and try to figure out where to look and what to say. The bathroom is small enough that I can't look at much besides his chest or, eyes moving lower, the way his wet boxers cling to his body. "Thank you," I mumble, turning and leaving the bathroom so we can get dressed separately. Naturally, I left my underclothes in the bathroom so I stay cocooned in the towel until he brings them to me.

"You're welcome," he says quietly. "You did really well. I'm glad you didn't need to bring that axe in with you. It looks awfully lethal for being so small."

I finger the tiny, but very much lethal axe that hangs from the belt of my pants. It bothers me, to be honest, that I hadn't thought of it. I keep that to myself, though, and dress quickly when he turns his back to me. "Right, well, I should probably go," I say to fill the silence. "Thanks for dinner and for helping me with that."

"You're welcome." He watches me lace up my boots before he says anything else. "You don't have to go yet, if you don't want to. I mean, if you don't have anywhere to stay tonight, you can stay here. Or if you need more help before you go to District 4. I'm really screwing up this speaking coherently thing, but what I'm hopefully managing to say is that when I said I'd be here if you needed anything, I didn't mean just one thing. That's it."

I keep my eyes firmly fixed on my foot and chew the inside of my cheek. In truth, my grand plan is basically to sleep in the train station until I find a train headed for District 4. When I get there, to a place surrounded water, my plans get even hazier. "Oh," I say intelligently. "Well, I suppose I don't have to go yet. Maybe I will stay the night, now that you mention it."

He nods and pulls a pillow and blanket from a tiny cupboard in the wall next to the desk. "You don't have to sleep yet, but you can have the bed. I'll sleep on the floor."

"I can sleep on the floor."

"I know you can, Johanna, but I'd rather you didn't. You're a woman, I'm supposed to carry you through mud puddles, open doors for you, sleep on the floor so you can have the bed … all that sort of thing."

I look up in surprise. "Chivalry and manners? I thought you were from the poor part of District 12." There, old Johanna had made a brief but welcome appearance by insulting the person who was trying to help her.

"The poorest," he says, giving an empty laugh. "But my mother is very big on treating ladies properly."

"Some people might say I'm not the most ladylike of ladies, or deserving of being treated as such," I counter, untying my boots and pulling them off again.

Gale holds out one of his shirts, clearly meaning it for something I can sleep in. "I said something like that about one of the prostitutes in the Seam back home. My mom told me that as long as she's got all the parts, she's still a lady and should be treated as such."

"I think I'd like your mom." His back is turned again so I strip off my clothes and put on the shirt I'd taken from him. "I only saw her a couple times in the cafeteria in 13. She sounds like a lot more fun than Mrs. Everdeen."

He doesn't reply until he's settled himself on the blanket on the floor, staring up at the ceiling with one arm draped over his stomach. "Fun? I don't know if that's the word. She's a lot different than Mrs. Everdeen. Whatever that means."

I copy his movements and lay down, pulling the blanket up to my chest. "What happened to your father?"

"He died in the same explosion that killed Katniss' father." He says it so quietly that I almost don't hear it. Resisting the urge to peer over the edge of the bed and look down at him, I search for something else to say. Before I do, he says more. "I was thirteen. My brothers were six and five. My sister was born two weeks later."

Not ready to share any of my own story, and not sure he would really want to hear it, I keep us on his story. "Your sister made that crap they called food in 13 bearable just because I sat near her at meals. She's adorable."

"Yeah, she made life in the Seam brighter," he says softly. "Maybe that's what made the difference between my mother and Katniss' – Posy. She was a baby, maybe that was it."

"Probably," I agree. "She seemed pretty impossible to love. Is she, are they, back in District 12 or still in 13?"

"Twelve. Haymitch arranged for my mother to be a housekeeper for himself, Katniss, and Peeta. In return, payment or whatever, she and the kids get to live in one of the houses in the Victor's Village."

It's strange to know that Haymitch is getting so soft. He's looking after Katniss and Peeta, of course, but taking on the Hawthorne family is definitely out of character for him. "Have you gone back?" I ask quietly, half hoping Gale's fallen asleep and not heard me.

But he heard me and answers. "No. I'm too afraid." He's quiet then. "Goodnight, Johanna."

I close my eyes and try to sleep but sleeping without dreaming is tricky these days and I'd rather not dream. Actually, I would like to dream. Normal dreams about sheep jumping fences or having to climb a never-ending ladder to reach a toilet would be a welcome thing. What I would like to stop, as soon as possible, are nightmares about being submerged in water and electrocuted, chased through the trees of home and hacked with an axe, and watching the people I loved die over and over and over again.

So I don't sleep, I just try to stay quiet enough suspended somewhere between sleep and wake that I won't wake Gale. In the end, it's him that wakes me up. He doesn't scream or thrash, he just sort of moans and whimpers into his pillow. I roll onto my side and look down at him. He looks so young and afraid and innocent. He looks like any average boy but he's not. He survived a Hunger Games of his own and it haunts his every breath. I know that person and I hate it.

On impulse, I let my arm dangle over the side of the bed. Never sure what to do in situations like this, I let my hand come to rest on his shoulder. He jerks a little when he feels it, but then he puts his hand over mine. We stay like that, in perfect silence, until dawn breaks outside the window.


	2. Chapter II

**I don't own this.**

_Thanks for the feedback so far! I hope you like this next little bit…_

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**LEARNING TO LIVE AGAIN**

Chapter II

"I only work half a day today," Gale tells me as I search what passes for his kitchen for something to eat for breakfast. "We can do something if you want."

"Like find food?" I suggest, eyeing a box of granola bars suspiciously. "Because this is not food in my book, not a freakin' chance. It's like the tesserae crap the Capitol passed out."

He reaches around me and pulls a bar from the box. "I'm a bachelor from the Seam in District 12, Mason, and I live in a former Peacekeeper barracks. I don't think the idea of creature comforts and this place, or me, have ever really crossed paths. But yeah, we can find food if that's what you want. You can go on your own while I'm at work, if you want."

The only window in his apartment is tiny and high up on the wall so, climbing on a chair, I check the weather. It's still raining. I hop back to the floor and snatch the granola box back. "Maybe we don't need other food."

"Still raining?" he asks as he ties his boots. "Stay inside. We'll decide what to do when I get back. It won't be later than one."

Alone in his tiny apartment, I swallow the dry granola and drink juice straight from the bottle. Without making a conscious decision, I've decided that the place I want to be right now is with Gale Hawthorne. I don't know why he said 'we' and told me his schedule and I don't know why I said 'we' should find food. I guess I'm not going anywhere.

There's next to nothing to do in the apartment so I latch desperately on to whatever I can find. I clean up from our supper, I clean the floor, I make the bed, I fix a wobbly leg on the desk … and then I run out of things to do. The prospect of sleeping and waking up to nightmares when I'm alone is better than if I'm not so I lie down on the bed and close my eyes.

The water crashes down around me as the lightning crashes into the unnatural tree that stands everywhere I look. Water and electricity never mix and I start screaming at the top of my lungs as I try to fight my way out of the net that's trapped me and holding me in the place I don't want to be.

It's only when my fist hits solid flesh so hard that my hand hurts that I realize it was all a dream and now I'm awake. I'm awake and Gale's holding me in his arms. He's got a bloody nose and his eye is already swelling shut, but his grip on me is solid.

"You're okay," he says as he lets me go. "You're safe."

"I tried to kill you," I point out. "I may be safe but I don't think you were."

"I never felt like my life was in danger, Mason," he tells me, scooting backward on the bed. "You were just fighting back against whatever you were dreaming about."

"Getting electrocuted in the arena when lightning struck the tree," I say before I can stop myself. It's new Johanna again, spilling my secrets without even being asked. "It's one of the more frequent ones lately."

"It didn't happen, maybe it's important to remind yourself of that," Gale suggests. "After all, aren't there plenty of things that actually happened to have nightmares about?"

I snort and pull my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them. "What do you have nightmares about, Hawthorne?"

"Last night? Finnick's death."

"That's my fault, I'm sorry."

I've clearly confused him and he runs his hand over his face. "What are you sorry for? How could it be your fault?"

"I came and asked you for help that involves Annie," I explain, thinking it seems simple enough. "It reminded you of what happened to him."

Gale stands up and paces the small room. "It's not like I can ever forget, Mason. But listen, my boss asked if I wanted a different assignment for a little while. I said maybe. I should go see my family. Shouldn't I?"

"If I had family to go see, I would," I say with a shrug. "The assignment would be in District 12?"

"No specific place yet, it's pretty much that I could pick where I wanted to be. So," he was looking at the wall while he spoke to me, "I was thinking I could go to 4 with you first and then go to 12. If you want me to."

I know that look and I know that tone; he wants to go home but he doesn't want to go home. He's afraid of how people will look at him after what he did. It's like he survived a Hunger Games. It's not new Johanna and it's not old Johanna… it's original Johanna that answers him. "Sure, I'd appreciate you coming with me. Thanks. I was figuring on going to 12 after 4, to see Haymitch and Peeta and Katniss. Maybe we could go there together too."

There's no mistaking the sigh of relief he breathes, even if it sounds a little wet from his bloody nose. "Yeah, thanks. But we should get food, and find out when a train leaves."

I unfold myself from the bed and move to stand in front of him, holding a tattered towel up to his nose. "Did I break it?" I ask as I push him to sit down and tilt his head back.

"It's stopping already, isn't it?" he asks, his words muffled by the fact that I'm squeezing his nose to stop the bleeding. "It'll be fine."

It would, the bleeding was already stopping. "You don't have ice here, do you?" I ask, gently brushing my fingertip over his swollen eye. "Or even a slice of raw meat?"

"No, neither. Once the bleeding stops completely, let's just go to the market. It's not raining anymore."

We do just that once he's washed his face and gently patted it dry. The market in District 2 is oddly a more depressing place than the market in District 7 had ever been. I chalk it up to the fact that District 2 has spent seventy-five years as the favored child of Panem and the loss and shortage they have to wait through now is nothing compared to what any citizen of 7 knows all too well. Gale agrees with the theory when I share it with him, declaring he'd have traded what's currently in District 2 for what he grew up with any day.

It doesn't take long to find cream from an apothecary stall for Gale's eye, chicken breasts and vegetables to make for supper, and to buy tickets to District 4 on a train scheduled to leave in two days. On a whim, I buy a block of basswood from a vendor on the edge of the square. It's been too long since I carved something and if Gale needs to go to work over the next two days, there's nothing left in his apartment to clean so I have to carve.

Cooking is not one of my talents so, once we're back in his room, I sit on the chair in his room and peel tiny curls of wood off the block with a knife I keep always with me for just such times while he cooks. Finnick and Annie made knots, Haymitch and Chaff drank, I carved … it's what victors do.

"What are you making?" Gale asks as he dumps a handful of diced carrots into the pot. "Do you know that when you start out?"

"No, it'll just happen. I mean, I can start out with the intention to make something, but I'm just going to see where this takes me," I explain, blushing stupidly when I realize I'm rambling and he probably doesn't care. I really hate the new Johanna – in part because she totally misjudges people, like Gale.

"Maybe you'll have to teach me that while we travel," he says instead of brushing me off.

"Are you good with your hands?" I ask, thankfully not blushing over the hidden meanings possible in my innocent question.

"I gave you a bath last night," he points out, smirking more in the direction of our supper than of me, "what do you think?"

"I think Katniss told me you're good with snares so yes, you're good with your hands." Finally, I can give as good, even inadvertently, as I can take. "I'll teach you."

He ladles the soup, or maybe it's stew, into a bowl and puts it in front of me. "And I'll teach you to cook."

"You're already teaching me how to get wet without turning into a whimpering pile of goo," I point out, passing him a glass of juice, "that seems somehow more important in the grand scheme of things."

With a spoonful of soup balanced carefully in the air, Gale shakes his head. "Being clean loses its meaning a bit if you're starving. Believe me, I know."

Burning my lips on the hot soup, I huff in frustration. "I wasn't rich in 7 before I got lucky enough to play the Hunger Games. Anyway, do you remember when I won? Did you watch?"

"Required viewing, Mason," he reminds me, winking at me. "Plus, it was only what, five years ago?"

"Ugh. That's a long time, it makes me sound old," I protest glumly as I take stock of the sorry state of affairs my life has been for the last five years.

"I'm almost twenty," he says, looking straight at me, "what are you? Twenty-five?"

"Do the math, dumbass," I yelp, bristling at the suggestion. "If I was twenty-five, could I have competed six years ago? No. I'm almost twenty-three, thank you very much."

Gale's smile doesn't reach his eyes. "That's not so old, Mason. But yeah, I remember your Games. You cried a lot at first and everybody counted you out. Then you became someone else and won. Which are you? Were you? Whichever."

"No idea anymore," I admit honestly as I focus on my food. "I was never really the sobbing twit I started off as, that was an act. But I'd like to think I wasn't a vicious killer either. Maybe somewhere in between. But that Johanna's gone now too. The head doctor in District 13 told me I don't have multiple personality disorder, strictly speaking. I feel like six different people sometimes, though.

"I'm sorry, Hawthorne, you didn't sign up to be my new head doctor." I pick up the bowl and swallow the rest of my soup. "Please, kick me out or ignore me or tell me to shut up. I'm embarrassing myself."

Gale doesn't say anything for a long time. Then, after he's cleared the dishes off the table, he sits back down and leans on his elbows. "No. Let's just make a deal that we'll take turns with the crazy, stream-of-consciousness thing. I'm not ready yet, so you go ahead."

I scowl but nod in agreement. It's strange, but it seems like I might actually have a friend who wants nothing more than to be around me. No strings attached and all that. I like it. I push back my chair; he was sitting on the end of the bed. "I'm going to go and wash my hands," I announce, walking toward the bathroom before he could say anything.

I put my hands under the water with no trouble. Then I squeeze soap out of the bottle and rub it around on my palms and on between my fingers. The problem comes when it's time to rinse off the soap. No matter how hard I try, I can't force my hands back under the water.

"I'm not good at it, but I hear it's okay to ask for help," Gale says as he comes up behind me and puts his hands over mine, guiding them under the water. "Apparently there's no shame in it."

I wipe my hands on the towel by the sink and turn to look at him. "I'm not good at it either, so it's a good thing you are good at sensing when I'm not asking."

"Fair enough," he laughs before sobering. "Is that enough washing for tonight or do you want to try another bath tonight?"

"Do you have to go to work in the morning?" When he shakes his head, telling me that he'll only need to stop in to tell them when he's leaving, I exhale deeply. "Bath in the morning then, okay? And I'm sleeping on the floor tonight, no arguments. You have to give the lady what she wants."

He gives me half a bow and shoos me out of the bathroom to change into my pajamas – also known as the shirt he gave me the night before. I knock on the door when I'm done and he comes out dressed for bed. Without a word, he settles onto the bed while I organize my blanket and pillow on the floor. I lay on my stomach, shaving bits off the block of wood while I wait to be tired enough to sleep. It's going to be awhile because my mind is running full speed.

A part of me feels like I'm overstaying my welcome in the tiny room Gale Hawthorne calls home but another part of me feels like he doesn't want me to go. Somewhere in the middle, I'm pretty sure I want to stay. So I'm going to stay.

I'll stay even though I don't know why I want to stay. It's going to take some time to figure out why I don't want to leave a man who offered me help to be polite and is now willing to take baths with me so I can visit someone even though I'm not sure why she wants me there.

I fall asleep eventually, my knife still in my hand.

I don't dream, not before I hear the sounds of a nightmare that isn't my own. Gale's crying softly into his pillow, whispering an apology to Prim – it takes me a minute to remember she was Katniss' sister – over and over again.

Creeping ever so softly, I climb up onto the bed and fold myself into a corner near his head and shoulders. Moving gently so I don't startle him, I rearrange both of us so that I've got my arms around him. He's awake, or something close to it, and seems to calm down. He doesn't ask me to move, he doesn't say anything at all, so I stay there. It's the least I can do after what he's doing for me.

In time, I hear his breathing shift back to sleep and I let myself follow suit.

I never have a nightmare.


	3. Chapter III

**I do not own this.**

_Thanks once again for coming back for more from Johanna and Gale! I really appreciate any and all feedback … and the fact that you're here, reading chapter 3! xoxo_

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**LEARNING TO LIVE AGAIN**

Chapter III

I crawl off the bed before Gale wakes up and pad softly into the bathroom. Once the necessary business is taken care of, I sit on floor and stare at the bathtub as though I can bend it to my will and chase any demons out. After a few minutes, I sidle along to a spot where I can reach the faucet. Then I stare at it for a while. Once I'm confident I'm not going to hyperventilate, I lean forward and turn on the water.

Stupidly proud of myself, I let my fingers dangle over the edge of the tub and I stare at the wall until I feel water on my fingertips. I switch off the faucet and stand up, scowling at the clear liquid in the tub. Maybe if I think about it as liquid and not water, exactly, things will be easier. So I stare at the liquid and strip off Gale's shirt and my underwear. Then I take the plunge, almost literally, and step into the tub.

My heart hammers in my chest and I breathe more quickly than a human being really should, but I'm standing in water almost up to my knees. Just as I start to feel dizzy, I hear footsteps and spin so fast that I nearly topple out of the tub.

Gale catches me, though, and keeps me on my feet. "You could have waited for me, but I'm proud of you for not," he tells me with his arms still around my naked body.

"I was having a panic attack and about to pass out," I point out sourly.

"Yes, but you tried. I bet the head doctors in 13 and the Capitol would congratulate you on your progress," he offers lightly.

Not feeling overly inclined to not be in his arms, I nod toward the edge of the sink where my carving knife rests. "Quote the head doctors to me again and I will use that on you, Hawthorne."

"Shut up and finish your bath," he laughs, brushing off my threat.

I want to do just that but the prospect kind of terrifies me and I speak my thoughts before I can stop myself. "Stay with me while I do?"

Gale nods and lets me go, folding himself onto the floor and leaving me do what I need to do. Somehow, I manage to do it. I keep my back to him and I don't think he sees the tears sliding down my cheeks but I stay in the water long enough to wash my entire body. Calling up something my prep team told me on my Victory Tour, I remember that some people don't think it's good to wash your hair every day so I flee the tub once my skin has been wet, soaped, and rinsed. Anything else can wait.

The towel is wrapped around me before I realize it and, instead of thrashing around at the surprise, I sort of melt into it, and into Gale's arms. "Still proud of you," he whispers against my temple.

"I chickened out before I washed my hair," I laugh nervously, wetly.

"Ducking your head under the water? I'd have to call you a faker if you could suddenly do that." He nudges me toward the door. "Go get dressed. I need to wash up then I'll empty the tub."

I do as I'm told, wearing the same set of clothes for another day so I'll have mostly clean ones to take to District 4. Gale's taking a long time, so I copy what he did and go find him in the bathroom. I feel like I shouldn't be there, like I should be watching him take a bath, but I can't pull myself away.

Old Johanna says that he's seen me naked, not that a lot of people haven't, so why shouldn't she see him just the same but new Johanna is curious about the scars on his back. He's been whipped, that much is obvious, but she wants to know why. More than that, she wants to comfort him and she doesn't even know if he wants to be comforted.

"Illegal hunting," he says, not turning around as he answers my unasked question. "Forty lashes, or so they tell me. I wasn't conscious quite long enough to count."

A painful knot appears in my stomach, making me slump against the doorway. I pull myself together before he notices, though. "To feed your family?" I ask hollowly.

He shrugs, droplets of water sliding down his back and over the raised lines. "My family, other families, anyone who was hungry. I'd already shot the turkey then I saw the trail Katniss left for me so I followed it. We had an argument. It was stupid. It made me stupid. I knew the Peacekeepers were upping things and I still went to sell to them. I should have known. The Head Peacekeeper had been replaced. I was arrested on the spot. I woke up on Katniss' kitchen table. Then later I was alone in the kitchen with Peeta. It was a very strange few days."

I slide down to the floor and pull my knees to my chest. "Why was Peeta there?" I ask, starting with the strangest, easiest part of what he said.

"I'm not totally sure," he admits, turning just a little so we're sort of facing each other. "My brothers and sisters were sick so my mother went home to them. I think someone made Katniss go to bed – she got a lash on her face – so he probably promised to sit with me if she went to bed. I don't think he said anything. Gave me water maybe. Or morphling."

"I like morphling," I say, giving voice to my thoughts before shaking my head and pulling myself away from that slippery slope. "Why do you think we're doing this, Hawthorne?"

"Doing what, Mason?"

"Why are we sitting in a bathroom, one of us always naked, and talking about the ghosts that haunt us?" Wishing I had my knife and block of wood – they were in the other room – I crack my knuckles. "I don't do this. I've never done this. Even before I was reaped, I only ever really talked about things with my brother … but then he died."

"I talked about things with Katniss," he offers, "but then she got reaped. Since then, not so much."

"Maybe that's it then, maybe we're doing this because we don't have anybody else to talk to." My knuckles won't crack anymore so I pick at a loose string on the leg of my pants. "Is that sad?"

I don't look up when I hear the water slosh as he stands up, not until he's got a towel tied around his waist. "No, Mason, it's not sad," he tells me with a quiet soberness. "Not to me. Maybe it was once, but I'm glad I finally have someone to talk to."

I am too but I'm not ready to say it aloud yet. That doesn't seem to bother him too much because he comes to get me once he's dressed and we leave the building again. We have another day to kill before the train leaves and we spend it exploring more of the market. By the time we finish, a few things have become clear. The first is that Annie's baby is never going to want for material things because I bought more than a mini-person could ever want. The second is that Gale will go to the ends of the earth for his brothers and his sister. He's careful to select a couple things he knows each of them will like; a small pink beaded purse and a pack of bright pink hair ribbons for his sister, a model train kit for his youngest brother, and a set of books for the older one.

"You sister likes pink?" I tease when he fingers an expensive small box filled with pink glitter, ink, glue, and paper.

"Loves it," he says wistfully. "The letters she's sent me are all written in pink ink. Well, I think my mom writes most of them but Posy always does a little and writes her own name. She even told me that she wishes she had pink paper."

"What? They have pink ink but not pink paper in District 12?" I ask, fairly surprised that they have it in District 2. It just seems frivolous, not that I was ever much good at the girly-girl things in life.

"No, no pink paper," he confirms. "In fact, my mom told me that the pink ink is really berry juice that Peeta taught Posy to mash and use as ink."

I grab the box from him and give the vendor a few extra coins for it – after all, the surviving victors are still getting their incomes so I, at least, try my best to spread it around even though the rest of the fund for the victors who died during the 75th Games and the rebellion has been even divided among the twelve districts who sent tributes. "I'll buy it," I tell Gale, knowing he doesn't have as much as I do, especially since he's supporting the family he never sees. "I know how to make paper too, even pink, so I can do that for her or teach her. If your mother doesn't mind."

"She won't, but why would you do that for a little girl? Don't take this the wrong way, Mason, but you don't strike me as someone who likes kids much."

"Think about it, Hawthorne, would you be a kid-friendly person if every time you saw a kid you were mentally calculating their chances of survival in the Hunger Games on the off chance they got reaped and you had to mentor them?" I know my words a harsher than they need to be but I can't stop. "I don't think you would. In case you were wondering, you'd go far in an arena, but only if you stopped overthinking things and gave in to instinct. From what I know of your siblings, the older boy wouldn't stand a chance – he's too emotional, the littler one could do alright, and the girl would figure somewhere in between your brothers.

"That's right, I've even calculated your five year old sister's chances in arena. That's what I do. In 7, I didn't even try, or want, to learn the names of the kids because I didn't want to care about them when their names got picked out of that damn ball. Try it, Hawthorne, and see if you're someone who likes kids."

The pain is almost overwhelming as he grips my elbow tightly and steers me out of the busy marketplace. I don't know why I don't fight back, but I don't. I let him propel me down side streets and back alleys until we're in some abandoned part of the district and I doubt I could get back on my own.

Shoving me against a brick wall, Gale puts his hands on either side of me so I can't escape. "You think I don't have any idea what you're talking about? You think I'm completely clueless about what it's like to see monsters that aren't there? You're wrong, Johanna Mason," he growls, even though the pain in his eyes belies the anger in his voice, "you're dead wrong.

"That group of kids by the table where you bought the pink stuff for my sister? I wanted to tell them to go home, away from places where bombs I created could be dropped on them. My sister and my brothers, the ones I haven't seen in months? You know why I haven't seen them? Because I'm afraid that they'll see me as the brother who designed the bombs that got dropped on hundreds of innocent children. Because Rory loved Primrose Everdeen more than any twelve year old boy should love a girl and I killed her. Because I don't want him to tell me it's alright, that it was just war. That's what he'll do.

"You got him right, he's too emotional, too good, too pure. He'll tell me it's not my fault and he'll tell me I'm his brother and he loves me. And then he'll go mourn the girl he had promised to marry. I don't want it to be okay, I don't want to be forgiven, and I don't want it to be like it never happened because it did."

His need to take a breath gives me the opportunity to slam the heels of my hands against his chest, throwing him backward against the opposite wall. Before he can react, I've copied his position and he's trapped. "You're not afraid then, you're afraid and stupid. That, if you really think about it, makes you the ideal Hunger Games victor. But you know what, Gale Hawthorne, you're different from a lot of us … from all of us. You have a family to go home to. You have a family that loves you, no matter what you did. Do you know how rare that is for any of us?

"Even more than that, the Hunger Games are over and Snow is dead and you don't ever have to think about your brothers or your sister going into an arena. If Rory would tell you that it's just war, he'd be right. It doesn't excuse what anyone did, but it does make it important if nothing else. We won, Gale. We lost some battles but we won the war."

He caves before I do, sliding down the wall and onto the filthy cement. "Nothing's ever the same, is it?" he asks, burying his face in his hands. "I wanted things to change so bad before, and I'm glad they have, but I feel like I'm saying the change was worth the lives of so many people that should be here. Maybe I'm afraid, stupid, and guilt-ridden."

I lean against the wall, not willing to sit down and get my last pair of clean pants dirty. I don't want to talk about the people who died, not yet, so I deftly keep the conversation where it had been. "Join the club, Gale," I tell him quietly. "Seriously. Look, I know I'm not a shining example of steadiness and mental health, but it is possible to live and laugh and maybe even love again. You just have to want to."

His gray eyes are on me in an instant, accusing me of things I don't even want to think about. "Do you, Johanna?" he asks. "Do you want to live and laugh and love again?"

I could hardly believe it, but no one had asked me that in a very long time. Without being forced to think about it, I hadn't. I'd avoided it like the plague. Now I have to answer or I risk looking like a complete fool after my little tirade. "Yeah, Gale, I do," I say as a moment of clarity smacks me in the face. "Why the hell else would I be here, having you help me not freak out in water? Why would I be going to District 4 and then to 12? There's nothing left for me in 7 so I'm starting over. I don't know where or exactly when or even how, but I fully intend to live, laugh, and love again. I won't be beaten again. Not ever."


	4. Chapter IV

**Don't own it, just playing.**

_Thank you so ridiculously much for still being here and reading this story! And to those of you who have reviewed, thank you _ridiculously _more!_

* * *

**LEARNING TO LIVE AGAIN**

Chapter IV

There's a drastic difference between the trains I rode to and from the Capitol and the train Gale and I are taking to District 4. On the other trains, I got a compartment to myself and all the food I could ask for. On this train, we're crammed together on an uncomfortable wooden bench. A few people are giving me looks because I'm still carving the wood and apparently knives on trains are frowned upon. They recognize me, though, and some even know Gale so they give us our space.

I slouch in my seat when Gale leans across me to look out the window. "That's the ocean," he declares. "It's huge."

I can't help but smile at the awestruck tone in his voice. For all the adult conversations we've had over the last few days and all the experiences he's had with war, he's still a kid from District 12 who hasn't seen much at all. "Katniss knew how to swim, do you?" I ask, trying to duck further out of his way because, after all, I saw the ocean on my Victory Tour.

"No, I've only seen the lake her father taught her in twice and that was just before the last Games and when 12 was bombed." Still leaning on the window, he looks under his arm at me curiously. "Do you know how to swim?"

I can't help but laugh. "If Katniss hadn't been there, you might've noticed me totally panicking on my pedestal when the Games started. If Beetee hadn't signaled to me that the belts were flotation devices, I don't know what I would've done. So no, I don't. I did walk in the ocean during my Victory Tour, though."

Sitting back down in his seat, closer to me than before, Gale nods. "I remember that, I think. You were wearing a strange green dress that looked like it had pine needles glued to it but, when a wave washed over your bare feet, you actually smiled. I think that was the only time I noticed it on your Victory Tour."

I shut my mouth, because I am gaping at him, and blink in disbelief instead. I can't believe he remembers my dress. "It was an ugly dress, wasn't it?" I ask because I can't form any more coherent words. "The stylist for District 7 was horrible the first year she was on the team, and it only got worse."

"More importantly," Gale says, smirking at what I focused on as the train pulls into the station, "you smiled. You're a different person when you smile."

I avoid letting him see that he made me smile by bending down to stuff the wood in my bag. When I stand back up, my face is its usual impassive mask. "Come on, Hawthorne, time to get off," I say as I push by him and step into the aisle.

He only laughs and follows me. "Does Annie know we're coming? Or are you just leading me to wherever she lives and we're surprising her?"

"Yes, yes, and no," I reply. "I'm not asking a pregnant girl to meet me at the train station but I did check with her to see if you could come – she said yes – and she still lives in the Victor's Village, so I'll take you there. Relax."

"With you? Always," he teases, squeezing by me to jump to the ground and then reaching back to help me. As much as old Johanna might have bristled at chivalry and decreed it to be chauvinism, new Johanna kind of likes it.

Gale's like a kid in a candy store as we walk along the pier that runs the edge of District 4's town square. For all the attention he's paying to it, the town could be on fire. The ocean has his full attention and it doesn't look like it'll be letting go anytime soon. Twice I have to grab his elbow before he walks off the edge of the pier and takes little boys holding fishing poles with him. Three times I have to apologize to people he's bumped into as he walks. I want to be annoyed but I can't, because he's sweet when he's excited and happy and I won't be the one to drag him back into reality just yet.

At the edge of the Victor's Village, I catch him and make him stop. "Did you have to check in with the mayor or anything before we go see Annie?"

He shakes his head and suddenly looks nervous. "No, I can go in the morning." I start walking again but he doesn't, reaching out to catch me this time. "Is seeing me going to upset her?"

"Because you were on Finnick's squad?" I guess, already shaking my head. "No. I asked her that and she wants to see you. I don't think she plans to lose more of her mind and attack you over it either."

"That's something, I suppose," he remarks dryly. "You okay with all this water surrounding us?"

I realize that, oddly, I am. I tell him that and shrug. "Maybe because it's not controlled by man."

"Could be," he agrees, turning his eyes toward the white sand that is the yard for the houses of the Victor's Village. "Ready?"

"As I'll ever be."

Annie doesn't open the door of the house I know is hers. Instead, we're greeted by a tiny young woman with bronze skin and dark hair piled in a bun on top her head. "You must be Johanna Mason and Gale Hawthorne," she declares, smiling warmly as she waves us inside. "Annie told me you'd be coming and I heard the train a little bit ago. I was just coming to see if you got lost."

Original, old, and new Johanna had little patience for talkative people and it's all I can do to suppress a sigh. "Mm-hmm," I hum instead, "that's us. And you are?"

"Oh, sorry," she chirps energetically. "I'm Maggie, Mags' great granddaughter. I just help out sometimes. Anyway, I'm on my way out. Annie's out back and there's lunch ready in the kitchen if you're all hungry. If you need me, I live in the caretakers' house at the edge of the village."

And she's gone. I look at Gale and shrug. "Anyway, you can wait in here and I'll go see her first by myself if you want."

He's relieved by that and goes to look out the side window that opens to a broad expanse of beach and ocean. I'm not totally sure I want to greet Annie alone, because I'm just crazy enough to want to avoid other crazy people, but I promised I'd do it and I don't go back on my promises. I'm doing it for Finnick.

"Johanna," Annie says as she walks toward me, one hand on her round stomach. "You came."

More awkward around pregnant women than I am around kids, I try really hard not to grimace or cringe. But she doesn't hug me and that helps. "I said I'd come so of course I came," I tell her, compromising and leaning in to kiss her cheek. "How much longer? Do you know exactly?"

"A few weeks," she says, balling her hands into fists at her sides. "That's what Nurse Everdeen says, anyway. And Maggie's sure it won't be long."

"Wait, Nurse Everdeen? Like Katniss' mother?" I ask before moving on to other things.

Annie nods and walks to sit on a chair beneath a palm tree. "Yes. She came to set up a hospital here. She hovers a lot."

Knowing from a few conversations with the occasionally coherent Haymitch Abernathy that our one-time Mockingjay is only just now starting to even begin to sprout proverbial wings again, this surprises me. I hadn't paid much attention to anything other than the fact that Katniss assassinated the wrong, and possibly the right, president of Panem and pretty much got away with it, but I'd been sure her mother would have gone home with her. Haymitch never said otherwise, so what was I supposed to think?

"I think she feels guilty she didn't go with Katniss," Annie continues, possibly oblivious to my inner monologue, either that or reading my mind, "so she's trying to make it up with me."

She should have gone home with her own daughter. It's little wonder that it's taking the girl so long to recover with only Haymitch to guide her. Then again, the woman did seem much more connected to the little girl in 13 than she did Katniss. Maybe that's why she couldn't go home.

"Johanna?" Annie says, a small smirk playing on her lips. "You disappear more than I do."

"Do not," I retort, huffing when she only laughs. I sit down beside her and reach down to unlace my boots, remembering how much I liked the feel of warm sand on my bare feet. "How are you?"

"Some days are easier than others, but none are ever perfect," she admits softly. "I just try to make it to tomorrow. That's all I want. What about you?"

I chew my lip and shrug my shoulders, wanting to be better than she is. I'm not really. I may not be screwed up in the same way, but I'm not really better at all. "I've taken two baths," I announce. Before she can say anything, I keep talking. "Yeah, I know that's pathetic given that it's been like eight months since I got out of 13. Both of them happened the last few days, too. And I had to have help to do it."

"Gale?" she guesses.

I nod once, unwilling to commit to more.

"He came, didn't he?" she asks, looking around.

Eternally grateful that she doesn't demand girl talk and details about my needing a man to help me take a bath, I assure her that he did. "He's waiting inside. He didn't want to overwhelm you or anything so he let me come see you first."

"He's worried I blame him," she says solemnly. "I don't, you know. I don't blame him or Katniss or Peeta or anyone else who was there. I blame President Snow. He's the one who killed Finnick, no matter how it happened in the end."

"I agree," I tell her, secretly hoping he's eavesdropping so she and or I don't have to repeat that all later, "and you're right about why Gale's nervous."

She nods and lightly rubs her bump. "I thought so. I was glad when you asked if he could come because I wanted to tell him that in person. After I have the baby and make sure everything's okay, I want to go to District 12 and tell Katniss and Peeta that too. Have you heard how they're doing?"

"Katniss checked out for a long time, I guess, but she's coming around. Haymitch is the source for that information, so that explains the lack of details. Peeta stayed in the Capitol for treatment until a few months ago. He's home now and hasn't tried to kill her yet. So there's that."

She listened to all that I said, but her eyes glaze over when I finish. I let her be in whatever world it is that she's found. After all, she isn't closing her eyes or covering her ears so it probably isn't a frightening place. "Is Gale still inside?" she asks when she's found herself again.

"Yeah, do you want me to get him to come out here or did you want to go in?" I ask. She doesn't really answer so I go inside, sensing that she plans to stay right where she is. Gale's in the kitchen, looking out a different window at a different view. "She wants you to come out," I tell him, "and she wants you to know that she doesn't blame you."

Whether as a buffer or as busy work, he dawdles and arranges three glasses of ice water on a tray before he moves toward the door. "Is she okay?" he asks quietly, waiting for me to hold the door open for him.

I can't do much more than shrug because, honestly, who am I to judge if someone else is okay or not. Gale's perfectly capable of making that particular decision for himself when he talks to her.

The clinking of the ice cubes against the glasses startles Annie back into the moment and she smiles serenely at Gale. "I'm glad you came," she tells him.

"Why?" he asks, handing her the water and scowling at me when I fold myself onto the sand so he has to sit in the chair beside her. "Can I ask that?"

Annie nods and sighs softly. "Of course. You can ask whatever you like. I guess my answer is that you were with, with, with …" Her hands cover her ears but just for a moment before she drops one hand to her stomach. "It's so strange, the baby kicks whenever I do that. But, Gale, you were there. And I don't want you to blame yourself because you came back and he didn't. Life's too short for that. That's what I keep trying to tell myself anyway. Some days it works better than others."

That's the theme of life among survivors, I'm beginning to realize. But not blaming yourself is much easier said than done and I don't think anyone knows that better than Annie. Before I give in to instinct and argue with her, she drinks some water and stands up. "Thank you for lying to me, Gale," she says so quietly I almost miss it. "I appreciate it, but you didn't have to. I'm going to lie down for a little while. Don't leave. Please."

"Of course, Annie," I assure her as Gale splutters and chokes on his own water. "There's no train out for at least a week, but we'd stay anyway."

"Thank you, Johanna." I watch her walk into the house and turn to Gale, blinking in disbelief. "What the hell is she talking about? What did you lie to her about?"

"I've never really had a conversation with her," he says as he stands up and walks toward the ocean. Swallowing my nerves, I follow him so I can hear whatever else he's going to say – because he's still talking. "It can only be one thing. It can only be what I said about how Finnick died."

All nerves about the water are forgotten as I realize I don't have any idea how my friend. No one ever told me, probably believing me just insane enough to completely lose it over the story, and I never asked for one reason or another. I want to know the truth now, and it kind of scares me.

"Who did you lie to about how he died?" I ask warily. "And why?"

"Just Haymitch," he says, sitting down in the sand and putting his face in his hands. "President Paylor knows everything. I lied to Haymitch because I knew Finnick was his friend and I knew Annie would go to him for details. I didn't think she needed to know the truth."

I sit down beside him and sigh. "Tell me the whole truth."


	5. Chapter V

**I own none of this.**

_I hate to do this but… if you're reading this and like it… won't you _please_ leave a review and tell me so? I haven't got many reviews and I don't know if anyone really likes it. If I don't know that, _why keep writing_? Know what I mean? So please… I'm shamelessly asking for _REVIEWS_!_

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**LEARNING TO LIVE AGAIN**

Chapter V

I feel like I'm getting sunburned but I don't really care. Lying in the sand and thinking about what Gale told me seems somehow more important.

He told Haymitch and, by default, Annie that Finnick was attacked by mutts but that he and Katniss had both fired their guns to end his life before he suffered too much. He told me that Finnick was basically decapitated by the man-sized lizard mutts and that Katniss detonated the holo to try and blow them up in case Finnick or the other squad member were still alive. They had to run before they were sure of anything.

"And Haymitch believed that?" I ask, speaking for the first time in at least an hour minutes.

"He never said anything else to me," Gale replies from his spot on his stomach next to me in the sand. "The only other people there were Katniss, Peeta, Cressida, and Pollux. Katniss and I were right at the top of the ladder. Maybe she told him the truth. Or Peeta?"

"Maybe, but doubtful," I declare. When he gives me a withering look, I punch him in the shoulder. "Think about it, Hawthorne, Annie knew you lied. She's clearly on top of things enough to know that you'd be the one making reports and telling people what happened – not cuckoo Katniss and hijacked Peeta."

"Fine, good point," he allows with a sigh. "Do you think she wants me to tell her what I just told you? What if she does? Should I?"

My first instinct is to say yes and yes to his first and last questions. But yes and no is probably a safer answer. Then again, it's Annie so it very well could be no and yes or no and no. In the end, I settle for the vaguest answer of all. "Maybe she does. If she does, decide what to tell her on the spot."

The way he scrunches his nose, I know he doesn't really like that idea. I don't either, but it's the best advice I've got. "I never asked anyone," he says, arranging the sand into piles and smashing them over and over again, "do you know if they found Finnick's body?"

Before I can answer that I honestly don't know, Annie answers for me. "They did. I saw it. Him. That's how I know you lied, Gale. And it's why I hoped you would come, Johanna. He told me once that he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes scattered in the ocean. I don't want to do it alone. Do you think, maybe …" Her voice trails off and she gets that faraway look in her eyes again. I swallow hard, knowing what she's going to ask me when she pulls herself back. I don't know how I'll answer. "Do you think, maybe, you could come out on the boat with me to do it? If the water won't terrify you. It's okay if it will. And you can't."

To stall for time, I grab at anything I can. "Why me?"

"You were his friend," she says as if it should be oh so obvious. "Of all the victors he ever mentored with, it was you he talked about the most. He liked you, Johanna. A lot."

New Johanna is rearing her ugly head and tears are threatening to spill down my cheeks so I bite my lip hard and sit up so I can't meet her eyes. At least I'd like to blame it on new Johanna. It might just be who I am deep down below all the layers of protection I've erected for myself.

Whatever it is, it hurts. I feel like my chest is going to explode from the pain and I can't stop the tears. It's been almost five years since I won the Hunger Games and eight years since my brother died. In eight years, I've allowed myself exactly one friend – Finnick Odair. And I didn't even want to allow that. He was just there and he was nice to me and I latched on to that before I could stop myself.

"It was never anything more than friendship," I blurt out to Annie, wondering if I need to reassure her of that. "I know what he did in the Capitol and a lot of people thought he did it with me, but he didn't. We didn't. Not ever. We were just friends."

With surprising agility, she kneels beside me in the sand and wraps her thin arms around my shoulders. "I know, Johanna," she whispers, crying with me. "I know. He needed a friend and you were that. Thank you for being his friend."

Sniffling wetly, I nod resolutely against her shoulder. "I'll go on the boat with you. Just tell me when and I'll be there."

She lets me go and sits back. "Tomorrow, at dawn."

"It was his favorite time of day," I finish for her, knowing the reason well, "because it meant anything is possible."

Annie smiles warmly and her hands move from their spots on her legs to rub her belly. "Exactly. It's his birthday too, so I thought tomorrow would be best." She leans close again and puts her lips to my ear. "Gale can come too, if you need him because of the water or even just want him there. I really don't mind."

I look to my right and see that he's disappeared again, no doubt leaving us to our crying jag. "I don't understand what I'm doing with him," I admit, confiding in a girl about girl things for the first time in my life. "It's so stupid."

"No, it's not, Johanna. If it was stupid, you wouldn't still be around him. No person would, but you even more so," she tells me. Before I could protest and ask just what she meant by that, she kept explaining things to me. "You don't have to understand. I know that better than a lot of people. It was Mags who told me it over and over again. She said if we spend too much time trying to understand, we're wasting time when we could be doing what's important. I don't know if she meant for me to let myself fall in love with Finnick, but that's what happened. I didn't understand why I was, but I'm glad I was."

"Do you think I'm in love with him?" I ask, running my hand through my still short hair.

"I don't think you should think about that," she answers plainly. "If he's helping you do something and you're helping him do something, why ask for anything more?"

If I should be bothered that mad Annie Cresta was giving me advice, I'm not. Maybe that was a good part of new Johanna. Annie actually makes sense and I'm going to try to follow her advice. "Good point. Keep reminding me of that, okay?" I ask her. When she agrees, I stand up and pull her to her feet. "Gale wants to go in the water, I think, would that Maggie girl who answered the door would take him? He doesn't know how to swim."

"She's at work. I'll take him," she says, turning toward the house and waving at Gale. "Come on, Gale, let's go in the water."

He's back to being the kid in the candy store as he pulls off his boots and rolls up his pants. I follow them to the edge of the water, kind of wanting to go in but not sure Annie should be responsible for two non-swimmers in her condition. At the very least, we can take turns.

Gale's brave, that much is clear when he lets Annie lead him far enough in that rolling up his pants means nothing because he's in water up to his waist. He even lets go of her hand, something I couldn't do. I don't think.

"Come on, Johanna," Annie says, leaving Gale alone as she wades back to me. "You might like it."

Her hand is around mine before I can protest; I'm either frozen in place or she moves stupidly fast for someone in water with a stomach so large, and she's tugging me forward. My feet are already bare and I don't really care about my pants so I don't bother with any of that. I don't start to panic until my knees get wet. That's when I plant my feet and refuse to move another inch. I'm not worried about electric currents running through the water washing over me, I'm worrying about being pulled out beyond the point of being able to run back to shore. That's progress, maybe. Either that or it's just a real difference between man controlled water and, well, water.

"This is so strange," Gale says, startling me by just how close he is after being so far away. "I like the water. It feels … freeing."

I eye him skeptically, feeling much more nervous than free. "What if one of us starts to drown?" I ask Annie pointedly.

"You won't," she replies confident. "But if you did, I'd take you back to shore. It's really not that far away, Johanna. You should try to relax."

I close my eyes and try to do what she says. I feel Gale's hand slip into mine and it's suddenly even easier. Relaxed, I realize that the water is actually warm and soothing. "Alright," I say, opening one eye just a crack, "it's alright."

Annie laughs and swishes her skirt around in the water. "Since you're both in the water and seem to like it, you can help me with something. I wanted to collect some shells and sea glass to decorate the baby's room but I can't bend over very well anymore so, if you want, you could do it for me."

The only thing I protest about is her leaving to get us buckets, I'll collect the stuff – I just don't want to be alone in the water. Gale humors me and volunteers to run back to the house and get the buckets we can see from where we are. With buckets in hand, we begin our search while Annie sits in the wet sand and lets the gentle waves wash over her legs.

It isn't long before I decide that my pants are weighing me down and I walk out of the water and shed them, leaving them in a pile by Annie.

"That took longer than I thought it would," Gale teases me, a smirk on his face.

To spite him, and because I want to, I pull my shirt off and toss it onto the pile with my pants. "Much more District 4 appropriate, right, Annie?"

She laughs and folds my clothes neatly. "Yes, Johanna," she tells me just a little patronizingly. "I don't mind if you take things off, Gale. She is right, people don't wear many clothes here."

It takes Annie and me nearly half an hour to convince him, but he eventually follows suit and ends up in just his shorts. Naturally, he kicks a wave of water at me when I whistle appreciatively at him. Not willing to retaliate in the fickle thing that is water, I immediately begin planning my revenge.

"You're not going to get me back," he taunts me, a smug smile almost reaching his gray eyes. "It's not happening, Mason, so don't waste your time."

"That sounds like a challenge, Johanna," Annie comments from her spot. "I wouldn't challenge her, Gale. I've heard stories that the best way to motivate her is to challenge her."

"Damn right," I declare proudly. "You're going to regret that, Hawthorne."

"Maybe after supper," Annie interjects, holding her hands out to us. "The baby is hungry."

"The baby?" I ask skeptically as we pull her to her feet and pick up our buckets. "Baby's mother, I think. If there's none of the lunch left that Maggie made, Gale's a very good cook."

Gale sticks his tongue out at me. "I don't know how to cook District 4 stuff," he protests.

"Don't worry, we can go into town," Annie says, motioning us back to the house. "Put on dry clothes and then we'll go. There are some sellers that we can buy things from and then eat in a picnic area by the water. If you want, I mean."

"If you feel up to it," Gale points out, "I would definitely like to see more of District 4. Mason?"

I tell them I do and hold the door open for Annie. She shows Gale where to change and then just takes me to her bedroom. "Here, wear this," she tells me, shoving a blue-green printed sundress at me before I can open my bag to get out my own clothes.

"Why?" I demand, remembering the last time I wore a dress to be the interview with Caesar Flickerman before I went into the arena for a second time.

"I'm wearing a dress and I don't want to be the only one," she says, looking through her own maternity dresses instead of at me.

New Johanna is terrible at guessing what's motivating people, so I give in way too easily and pull the dress over my head. Annie's taller than me so the dress hits below my knees rather than above them but my boobs are finally getting their shape back after being starved in the Capitol so it fits perfectly in all the right places. Before I can stop her, she runs a brush through my short hair and sticks a green headband in it. "Do I need makeup too?" I ask dryly, ducking away in case she reaches for it even though I don't see any.

"No," she says, smiling almost like a cat that swallowed a canary, "you don't need makeup. Your cheeks are pink from being out in the sun all afternoon. It's perfect."

"I'm not going on a date with you," I point out, only to be completely ignored as she grabs my hand and pulls me out of the bedroom. Apparently, she's very hungry.

It doesn't dawn on me that she just might have ulterior motives until Gale stammers something about being ready when he sees me. I want to glare at Annie but, for a lot of reasons, I can't. Besides, I'm probably just imagining the way he's watching me as he offers Annie his arm.

The market is much more interesting than the one we left in District 2. I quickly chalk that up to District 4 having been one of the earliest districts to rebel because the people here are definitely enjoying their freedom even if they are still suffering shortages. My perception might be colored too by the fact that Annie is treated like a queen. Everyone wants to check on her and give her the best of what they have. It's good to see. I'd been worried about her being back where she'd been with Finnick.

I sit by Annie at the picnic table and Gale sits across from us as we eat our fried okra and shrimp. Everything is perfect until the middle of dinner when Gale freezes. I look over my shoulder and see why – Katniss' mother.


	6. Chapter VI

**I do not own this.**

_You people reading and reviewing this story … you _ABSOLUTELY LOVELY_ and I adore you all. Sorry for my shameless begging on the last chapter. Here's some more for you to read … I hope you like it! And tell me so! ;)_

* * *

**LEARNING TO LIVE AGAIN**

Chapter VI

She tells Gale to finish his dinner and then they will talk but dinner is all wrong after that. Gale doesn't talk and Annie covers her ears twice. "Come on," I tell both of them, "we'll try this again tomorrow. I'll take Annie home and you go talk to her." He doesn't want to, that much is clear by the look on his face, but he's got to. "Think of it as practice for District 12," I tell him in a whisper while Annie's still got her ears covered.

He nods reluctantly and helps me get Annie to her feet. "You sure you'll be alright with her?"

As if on cue, she snaps out of it and reaches out to squeeze Gale's hand. "We'll be fine, Gale. You need to talk to Nurse Everdeen, I think." Then she turns to me with a slightly panicked look in her green eyes. "Can we hurry home?"

If I could see myself, I'm sure the panic would be in my eyes now. "Why? You're not having the baby now are you?" That would so not be a good thing. "Maybe we need Katniss' mother?"

"Oh no, not that," she assures me, still not looking to steady. "I just want to avoid Maggie and if she sees me here, she'll want to come home with us. If we're already there, you can tell her I'm asleep and she'll go away."

Avoiding Maggie, who'd clearly been more than happy to take care of her, is going to take some investigation on my part but now is not the time. "Try to bring her close to the house?" I whisper to Gale as I link my arm through Annie's. "Just in case she's lying to me about the baby?"

He nods and walks off to find Katniss' mother. Annie and I go back to her house. She still seems … off, so I suggest she lay down and she does. I sit with her in her bedroom, just in case, and watch her as she falls asleep before I can work on figuring out the Maggie situation. When she's asleep, I tiptoe from the room and poke around the rest of the house.

It's laid out exactly as my house in District 7 is, was, whatever. The only differences are that the decorations are specific to the district, just as I expected they would be. Thinking of the shells and sea glass Annie had us collect, I open each bedroom door in search of the one she planned to use for the baby. When I find it, I also find Maggie – putting things in a box.

"What the hell are you doing?" I demand, snatching a baby blanket out of her hand.

"Just getting things ready for the baby," she tells me, too cheerfully. "It won't be long now, you know."

"Mm-hmm," I hum skeptically. "But getting ready for a baby usually means unpacking, not packing as you seem to be doing. Unless things are very different where I come from, but I don't think they are."

She's nervous, and she should be. But she sets out to explain herself, or try to. "I hate to say it, but Annie shouldn't be alone, especially not with a baby. We both know that," she says although I would never admit to knowing any such thing. "She won't agree to come live with and she won't let me move in here. Not yet, anyway. I know she'll change her mind once the baby comes so I just want to be ready. You can understand that, can't you?"

"You're just going to what, pack her up and move her in with you?" I ask dubiously.

Maggie nods. "I think she'll want to, though. I wouldn't force her to do anything, other than think about the best interests of the baby, of course."

"And if she decided that she was perfectly capable of taking care of the baby here, by herself? What would you do then?"

"She shouldn't be alone with a baby," she tells me, not seeming so nice and easygoing anymore. "What if she spaces out when the baby needs her? If she won't come with me or let me move in her, I'm going to offer to take the baby and be its primary caregiver."

Rage is welling inside of me, rage that I need to quiet before it gets me in trouble. "Offer? Sure, I believe that. Look, I knew your great-great grandmother, I even liked her. She would never sneak around in someone's house and make plans for her future. Get out."

"Annie needs me," Maggie protests, considerate enough to keep her voice low. "You're going to abandon her soon, just like you all did in the Capitol, and I'll be left to take care of her. Don't tell me what to do."

"Get out," I repeat, taking a step toward her. "She specifically told me she didn't want you here now so get out. When she wants you, I will make sure you know it. Now get out."

Maybe it's because she remembers I'm a killer or maybe she does have a little bit of Mags in her, either way, she leaves. I check on Annie but she seems to be sleeping peacefully so I creep back to the front porch with my block of wood and my knife. The night is warm enough that I'll hear her if she cries out.

Gale returns not long after I decide to carve a tiny boat for Annie and Finnick's child. "No baby?" he asks, wearily sinking down on the step below me.

"No baby. I may have kinda, sorta accidentally threatened that Maggie twit," I admit before launching into the story of what happened. I really hope he isn't going to tell me that I was wrong to do what I did.

"Annie should definitely get to decide her own future," he declares after a minute of thought. "She certainly seems aware of everything. I think you should talk to her before Maggie goes any further."

"You're not just saying that?" I ask, staring intently at the back of his head.

Gale laughs shortly and shakes his head. "To make you feel better? No. I mean it."

Sensing tension in his shoulders, I scoot the side and start massaging him. "How did your conversation go?" I ask warily.

"Okay, I guess," he replies vaguely. "She said she doesn't blame me for Prim's death, and that I shouldn't blame myself. Easier said than done, but good to know."

"Has she seen Katniss?" I ask.

He shakes his head and sighs, leaning back into my legs so I can reach his shoulders better. "No. I don't think she can ever go back to 12 – too many bad memories. Katniss is finally speaking again, though, her mother's talked to her."

"What brought her around? Did she say?"

The tension flashes back to his shoulders and I rub harder has he answers. "Peeta getting home, apparently." He leans back further and sighs again. "You look nice in that dress. It reminds of the one you wore on your Victory Tour."

"I still can't believe you remember that," I say as it dawns on me fully why Annie might have given me the dress to wear, even if she didn't know he remembered. "It is weird being in a dress again, and being in one by choice is nice too."

Gale sits up and twists around to look at me. "I know we said we'd be up before dawn, but do you think Annie would be alright if we went for a walk on the beach? I'm too keyed up to go to sleep just yet and I want to see the moonlight on the water. I can go alone, though, if you don't want to go, or leave her."

I tap him lightly on the temple and stand up. "Don't move, Hawthorne, I'll be right back." Turning on my heel, I sprint inside and up to Annie's room. Waking her up just enough to tell her we won't be far and to scream if she needs us, I ignore the knowing smirk she gives me and tell her to go back to sleep. Then I return to Gale and start walking toward the beach.

"So, are you going to tell your family you're coming home?" I ask as we walk barefoot in the sand.

"I think I'll surprise them," he says thoughtfully. "What would I tell them about you?"

Desperate for him to not be saying he doesn't want me to meet his family, I try to draw it out of him without being obvious about it. "Hey, I'm going to see Haymitch, or Katniss and Peeta. It's not like your mother has to let me stay with her."

"I wasn't saying that, Johanna," he interjects quickly. "I wasn't asking if I was supposed to tell my mother we're sleeping together or something like that. I was asking what you wanted me to tell them, what you'd be most comfortable with. I'm sorry if I didn't ask it well enough."

He starts to walk faster, back toward the house, but I grab his hand and pull him back. "I'm sorry, Gale," I say softly. I don't tell him I'm not sure where I fit in anymore or even if I do. The apology seems simple and sufficient enough.

And it is. I know it when he leans down and presses his forehead against mine. "Do you think we'll ever stop second-guessing everything everyone says?" he asks, his breath warm as it washes over me – he smells like the outdoors, like home.

"No," I answer honestly. "But maybe we can stop second-guessing each other one day."

"I look forward to it," he sighs, not reacting when I lean against his chest except to wrap his arms around me.

We end up sleeping in the sand, wrapped around each other, in clothes not meant for sleeping outdoors in. I wake up with sand stuck in places I didn't know existed. I don't have time to remedy that because Annie is standing over us, looking down with a knowing smile and a deep sadness in her eyes. "You can change if you want," she tells us, "but it's almost dawn. If you're still willing to go."

"We're ready," Gale answers before I can. He's on his feet quickly and pulls me to mine. "Do you need me to do anything to get the boat ready, Annie?"

She instructs him on how to untie the boat and move it to the end of the dock. As I wiggle around beside her, trying to dislodge some of the sand, I'm relieved to hear we'll be taking a boat with a motor and a hut type thing on it where I can sit and not look at water if I don't want to, or can't.

When Gale walks away, Annie turns and asks me the very last thing I expect her to ask me at this particular moment in time. "Did you have sex on the beach last night?"

All thoughts of sand are momentarily forgotten as I gape at her in disbelief. "Did I what? Did you just ask me what I think you asked me? Or is there sand in my ears?"

"I don't know what's in your ears," she says, a playful smile ghosting across her face, "but I asked if you and Gale had sex last night out here."

"I… We… No, no sex. For pete's sake, Annie, I can't believe you just asked that," I splutter.

"You will," she says far more confidently than she should.

Deciding she's a whole new kind of crazy today, I wave my hand toward the dock. "Come on, it looks like Gale's got the boat ready and dawn is getting close. We can talk about sex later. If I'm not dreaming this."

When we reach the end of the dock, Gale escorts Annie first and then me into the boat. By this time, Annie is basically out of it and I'm starting to panic just a bit. He manages to talk Annie back enough to get directions on how to run the boat and where to go. Considering that he hasn't been in water above his waist, this makes me nervous and I take refuge in the hut, borrowing a move from Annie and squeezing my eyes shut.

The boat moves so smoothly across the water that I hardly notice the water, not until I feel myself come to a stop and Gale is tapping my shoulder. "Can you do this?" he murmurs, glancing over his shoulder at Annie – she's standing at the front of the boat, staring at the horizon while she clutches an urn to her swollen stomach.

I nod and stand up, swaying a little with the movement of the boat. "Yes. I was only nervous because you've never driven a boat," I say to make myself feel, and sound better.

He sees through my manipulations, I can see it in his eyes, but he's smart enough not to say so. Instead, he takes my hand and helps me walk up to where Annie is.

The fact that Finnick is in the urn is mildly unnerving, but I try to shake that off and focus on what I'm doing for her and for him. I only hope she doesn't want eulogies or something like that. I'm not good at that and I don't think Gale knew him that well.

My wishes come true again and we just stand in silence.

My mind goes immediately back to the last conversation I had with Finnick, something I'd purposely or accidentally not remembered until now. I'd broken down in the final training exercise and he came to see me in the hospital before he left for the Capitol. He told me he was worried he might not come back, but that he had to go because it had to be part of ending it all. He asked me if that was selfish, since he was leaving Annie behind and might never come home to her. Home for him would have been wherever Annie was, I'd known that since I started mentoring. I told him it wasn't selfish, I told him if he could end it all, then he should.

I don't feel guilty about telling him that because he would have gone anyway, no matter what I said. He might have even just been saying it for me.

The last part of our conversation is the part that comes back to me the clearest. Finnick asked me to keep an eye on Annie if he didn't come home.

That makes everything right; what I said to Maggie, the fact that I'm on a boat in the middle of the ocean … it's all as it should be.

As the sun appears on the horizon, I step up onto a small ledge at the forward point of the boat and hold my hand back to Annie. She steps up beside me and Gale stays where he is, in case we fall.

I keep my hand around her waist as she twists the top off the urn. Then, in a single sweeping motion of her arm, she flings the ashes across the water. They hover in a nebulous cloud before falling almost as one to the ocean he loved so much.

Annie drops the urn into the water just as the side of the boat and sighs. Her cheeks are wet and her eyes are red-rimmed and shimmering but she doesn't look broken, she looks stronger.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out why.

Finnick is finally free and she's going to live for him.


	7. Chapter VII

**I do not own this.**

_Readers, reviewers, and all the rest – I adore you. I hope you like this next chapter of Johanna and Gale's story…_

* * *

**LEARNING TO LIVE AGAIN**

Chapter VII

Two days later, with Gale and Annie totally engrossed in a game of chess, I go into town by myself. I've got a couple reasons for going; first, to buy myself some new clothes, second, to find and talk to Maggie, and third, to tell Katniss' mother that Annie had contractions that led to nothing the night before. I'd kind of panicked when she woke me up and told me but Gale, a never ending source of surprises, stayed calm and sat with her until we realized the baby wasn't coming just then.

That's why I can leave him alone with her. That, and the fact that he told me to – because I was making her nervous.

The clothes shopping isn't going well because I'm not convinced that the flimsy clothes District 4 prefers, because it's really all they need, will be of any use to me in District 12. It doesn't help that we figure we'll arrive there sometime in mid or late fall. I feel just a little presumptuous to be thinking I'll be staying there for long enough to be affected by the weather, but I can't help it.

So, with clothes off the table for the most part, I settle for buying some fabric that I can turn into what I need – my grandmother had made me pay attention and learn to make my own clothes in case I was ever in a pinch. I move on to a vendor selling a variety of soaps and reach immediately for a particular bar – it smells like home.

I hold it to my nose, inhaling the scent of pine and sap, and things are momentarily right in the world. "How much?" I ask the vendor without moving the bar.

He tells me how many coins it would cost me and bends down, coming back up with a glass jar, a bottle, and a tube. "If you like how that smells, maybe you'd like this powder, shampoo, and toothpaste. Best I can figure, a shipment got mixed up 'cuz the box this came in was from District 7 and bound for 3. New rules are that whatever gets off-loaded gets to stay where it is. Ain't too much call for it here, though."

Putting the bar down only to smell everything else – even pine scented toothpaste appeals to me – I nod that the mostly toothless man. "Is this all the things from 7 that you have?" I ask.

Sensing a sale, he shakes his head almost violently and ducks back down beneath the table. This time, he produces a battered box filled with things marked _Product of District 7_. I reach deep into the pocket of my pants and pull out a fistful of coins, far more than he asked, and drop them into his outstretched hands. "I'll take it all. Anything that says District 7."

The man seems sad that he doesn't have anything more from my district, but he does point me in the direction of his cousin who sells wooden trinkets and furniture, some of them from District 7. I don't need either, but I go and look over what he has. It makes me happy to see that the fine craftsmanship of home hasn't waned a bit since the rebellion.

Maggie finds me, rather than the other way around, when I'm standing in the shade of a very large umbrella and drinking sweet tea. "I want to apologize for the other day," she says when I acknowledge her with a nod. "You were right, Mags would be ashamed of me. I shouldn't decide things for Annie."

I don't even try to keep my smugness tempered. "So you're going to let her decide?" I ask, just to clarify everything for myself and for Maggie.

"I would, but I'm not staying in District 4," she says, managing to look both sad and excited at the same time. "I applied for a job as a teacher and I got it, but I have to go to the Capitol for training for a few months first. I'm going to apologize to Annie before I go, though."

Sometimes I really don't get people and I take a long drink so I can have a moment to think before I speak. "Fine. Good luck with that," I manage to spit out before I walk away.

Katniss' mother reaches out and taps my arm before I get too far away. "I heard you talking to Maggie," she says in the quiet, unassuming way I suddenly remember very clearly – Katniss definitely has, or maybe had, a personality more like her father. "I want you to know that I will look after Annie and the baby, as much or as little as she'll let me."

"You work at the hospital, don't you?" I ask, because I really can't remember for sure.

"Mm-hmm," she confirms, "and maybe my having to go to work would be good for Annie. She'd be alone sometimes but have someone around others."

"You're not going back to District 12? Ever?" Gale's already told me her answer but I can't let her know that, not that I'm sure why not.

"One day, at least for a visit, I will," she says, keeping her eyes somewhere around my collarbone. "Not yet, though. I'll only make things worse for Katniss. Gale told me that you're going there with him, I think that will be good for her. Maybe better than if I went back now."

I scoff softly at the idea. "Your daughter and I don't really like each other," I point out bluntly. "And Gale says she blames him for her sister's death. We might do more harm than good."

"You and Katniss have the same experiences, Johanna," she tells me gently but firmly, "that'll be enough to help her. As for Gale, whether she blames him or not, she needs to forgive him or she'll never heal completely."

The woman makes a fair point, or two, but I don't say that. "We're staying with her until the baby's born at least, which might not be long," I say, filling her in one the events of last night before I finish what I have to say. "If you have anything to give Katniss, give it to me before we leave and I'll make sure she gets it."

"Thank you, Johanna, I appreciate that. Now, do you think I should go check on Annie now?"

I nod quickly, afraid of what might happen if she goes into labor with only me and Gale around. "Gale seems confident," I tell her as we start walking, me with my arms full of my District 7 paraphernalia, "but I don't know how confident he'd be if the baby comes. But I could be wrong."

"He was fifteen when his sister was born and he completely lost his mind," she says with a soft laugh. "I don't think he's been around any other births, so I don't really think you're wrong."

"I'm usually not," I boast proudly.

The rest of the walk passes in silence and we arrive at the house to find Annie and Gale still at their chess game. Although, maybe it's my new panicky nature, but she looks a little paler than when I left. She seems relieved to see Katniss' mother and they disappear into Annie's bedroom for an examination.

"What's in the box?" Gale asks, poking through the box I'd set on the floor. "That's a lot of soap, Mason, for someone who doesn't like to take baths."

I shrug and shove him away from my stuff. "I figured maybe if it smelled like something I like, and not like that crap you use, it might be easier. Maybe."

"You went back to 7, right? Did you try to take a bath there?"

"Yes and yes," I admit although I'd rather not. "A thunderstorm started while I was in the water so when I saw lightning, I flipped out. Long story short, there was a big fire in my bathroom that night."

He's gaping at me, so I look away. "You set your bathroom on fire?" he asks warily.

"I meant to set the house of fire," I admit shamelessly, "but the rain put it out. So I sold it to three families whose house was actually struck by lightning and burned down. Then I went to find you. But enough about me, is Annie in labor?"

"I think so. I asked her but she covered her ears so when they were uncovered again, I casually mentioned that you were coming back with Mrs. Everdeen and she seemed calmer after that, even if she did keep looking at the door."

"You're right, Gale." Katniss' mother's declaration startles me but I pretend like I didn't just grab Gale's arm. "She's in labor, fairly far along. It won't be long before the baby is born. She asked for you to come in, Johanna."

I keep my string of profanities silent and steel myself to whatever awaits me in the bedroom. Apparently I take too long because Gale nudges me in the back with his first. Scowling at him, I make sure I'm smiling when I see Annie.

"I'm scared," she blurts out as soon as she sees me.

"I know," I tell her, moving to sit on the edge of the bed and do something I'm really not that good at – be comforting. "But you're going to be fine. You know why?"

She shakes her head, her green eyes dark with fear.

"You're going to be fine because Finnick is here. He's going to help you get through this and he's going to help you be the best mother you can be." I hope I sound convincing.

"That won't be a very good one," she argues uncertainly.

"Why not?" I'm dangerously close to falling into a tough love type of thing, but maybe that's what she needs. "Why do you think you won't be a good mother?"

She doesn't answer until after she's squeezed my hand with ridiculously painful strength during a contraction. "I'm crazy, Johanna," she whispers, tears now making the fear in her eyes shimmer. "The only reason I didn't start screaming or covering my ears just now is because I was squeezing your hand."

"Then keep squeezing my hand, Annie," I tell her, even as my fingers protest. "I'll help you get through this, and I'll help you when the baby is here if you want. I don't know anything about babies, but I'll learn with you."

She shakes her head. "You need to go to District 12 with Gale."

"I don't need to do anything," I argue, "but I'm not having that conversation now. We're going to talk about how good a mother you already are. Have you decided on names for the baby?" I desperately hope I can distract her, even just a little bit, and keep her in the moment and okay.

To my surprise, she nods confidently. "Keela, if it's a girl, and Jack, if it's a boy."

"Why Keela and Jack?" I ask, because it seems like she wants to talk about it.

"I didn't pick them on my own, Finnick and I picked them just after the Quarter Quell was announced. We were just talking about what the future might be, and my period was late then, but it turned out I wasn't pregnant, so we decided on names … just in case…"

"He didn't come home," I finish softly, not even trying to stop the tears from sliding down my cheeks. "That's really beautiful, Annie."

She gives sort of a half shrug and struggles to pull herself together. "Anyway, Keela means beautiful and graceful in the ancient Gaelic language. Jack is another term for a sailor, just someone ordinary but strong and brave."

I exhale a shaky breath and try to keep the tears to silent ones instead of openly sobbing. To me, Keela is a beautiful name and would be perfect for any daughter of Finnick and Annie's, but I hope she has a son. I know that there isn't anything more Finnick wanted in life than to be strong, brave, and ordinary. For their son to get the chance to be that would be truly extraordinary.

"Do you like them?" she asks quietly, breaking me out of my reverie.

"They're perfect, Annie," I assure her. "Absolutely perfect."

I sit with her just a few more minutes before Katniss' mother comes in and starts organizing the last few things that will be needed for the baby's birth.

The next few hours are long, loud, frantic, frightening and short, quiet, calm, and healing all at the same time.

I hold Annie's hand at first, then I sat behind her, holding her and wiping her forehead with a cloth as the time drew close. "Come on, Annie, you gotta breathe," I whisper in her ear, forcing her to focus on my soft words – something that draws a nod of approval from Katniss' mother. "You're only wearing yourself out by panicking and you need all your strength to get through this. Breathe for me."

Somewhere deep down, she wants to hear what I'm saying, to listen to it, and she works so hard to do it. I'm in awe of her. I don't ever want to go through the pain, physical and mental, that she's going through, but Annie Cresta-Odair is fast becoming my new hero.

"I can see the baby's head, Annie," Katniss' mother says in a soothing voice, "you're almost there."

I hold her tight and murmur words of encouragement as she brings her child into the world.

Having carefully avoided all babies my entire life, the first literally newborn child I ever see is Finnick and Annie's son.

She's slumped against me, watching Katniss' mother attend to the baby's needs, and it's safe to say I'm crying harder than she is – thankfully no one notices.

When the tiny baby is in his mother's arms, she looks up at me with a sad, but somehow peaceful, smile. "Jack? Don't you think?" she asks.

I look down at the little creature, taking in his dark bronze crown of hair and deep green eyes, and smile. "Strong, brave, and absolutely extraordinary," I declare in whisper. "Jack Odair is absolutely who he is."

I only stay in the room for a little while longer, until Katniss' mother has made sure both mother and child are going to be just fine, then I slip out the back door and walk to the shoreline. "Your son is beautiful, Finnick," I tell the water, the sky, the air. "More beautiful even than you, I think. But of course he would be, since you and Annie made him. You'd be so proud of her Finnick – you always were so proud of her. Why would that be different now?

"She's going to be okay, I think. She misses you every moment of every day, but she's just as strong as you always told me she was. I know that's because you're helping her.

"I miss you too, Finnick. You made me accept you as a friend in a place where I didn't expect or want to find one. But I wouldn't have traded it for a moment." I pause and realize that what I just said isn't exactly true, so I correct myself. "I would have traded it, maybe. If it meant that somehow you could have had more time here, with her and with your son. I'd have hated you if I had to. That's not true either. I could never hate you. You made the world a brighter place just by being in it. You should still be in it, Finnick, and I'm really angry that you aren't.

"I wanted to watch you and Annie grow old together. I wanted to tease you about losing your looks as you got old. I wanted to keep my friend.

"I miss you, Finnick Odair."


	8. Chapter VIII

**I don't own this.**

_I hope you like this chapter!_

* * *

**LEARNING TO LIVE AGAIN**

Chapter VIII

"Why am I so freaking itchy?" I growl as I sit on the step by Annie's feet and scratch my ribs, the latest site of the unrelenting itch, while she feeds Jack. "Am I allergic to sand?"

"No, it's not the sand, Johanna," she tells me, obviously trying to be gentle about it. "It's the salt from the water. You've been here two weeks and the only water that's really touched your skin is the saltwater. It builds up and makes you itch unless you wash it off."

Glowering at offending water, I keep scratching. "That's not entirely true, you know," I snap defensively. "I've washed my hands."

"And you're not scratching your hands," she points out bluntly. "Have you used any of that soap you found from District 7? You have to wash off the salt. It'll only get worse otherwise, ask Nurse Everdeen."

I'm not going to ask anyone else because, deep down, that's exactly what I assumed my problem is. So I scowl at Annie instead. "Fine, I'll take a bath. When Gale gets back from town."

As if she knows the effect it'll have, she turns Jack so his sweet face is directed at me – I immediately stop scowling and smile like the melted lump of goo I am around him. Gale and I are scheduled to leave District 4 in just two days and it's going to hurt to leave him, them. "I'm going to miss him," I sigh, reaching out and taking him because I have become excellent at burping babies.

"About that," Annie says with an excitement in her voice, "you won't be away from him for long. As soon as Nurse Everdeen says he's strong enough to travel, I want to bring him to District 12."

"How come?" I ask, giving up and scratching my leg with abandon.

"I told you that I wanted to see Katniss and Peeta again, but especially I want to make sure that Haymitch meets Jack." Her excitement fades slightly as she looks nervous instead. "Johanna? I was reading a book about how things used to be and there was a thing called godparents. Have you ever heard of them?"

I shake my head and scratch my other leg, silently admitting she might be right about the salt because I can feel it gathering underneath my fingernails.

"When people had children," she began, offering me Jack – I take him even if it probably is just a ploy to get me to stop scratching, "they would name other people, friends or family, as godparents to the children. Then, if anything happened to the parents, the child would have someone to look after him without any trouble at all. The parents, then, can know that things will be taken care of even if they aren't there anymore. Understand?"

"Yep, you're giving Jack godparents," I say, nodding in agreement as I carefully cradle him in my arms. "It's a good idea. Who will his godparents be? Have you decided?"

"That's part of the reason I want to go to District 12 as soon as possible–"

Old Johanna makes an appearance and interrupts her. "Are you sure Katniss and Peeta are the best choices for him?"

"Let me finish, Johanna," she says, laughing even though I threw her off. "No, not Katniss and Peeta. Haymitch."

There are no words, no words to properly respond to the idea of Haymitch Abernathy being anyone's godfather so I keep my mouth firmly shut and gape at her instead.

Annie only shakes her head, brushing aside my unspoken worries. "Finnick and Mags always said that if I ever didn't have them, I should go to Haymitch if I needed help. They trusted him, so I trust him," she declares firmly. "But that's only one godparent. Jack still needs a godmother."

I don't add that he'll still need a godfather if Haymitch balks at the idea. Instead, I blink expectantly at her, wondering who in the world could be left that Finnick and Mags told her to trust enough for that.

Sliding off her chair and coming to sit by me on the step, Annie brushes her finger gently along Jack's cheek and then fixes her intense green eyes on me. "Johanna? Will you be Jack's godmother?"

"Yes." Then I realize I said yes and shake my head, trying to make sense of it all. "I mean, yes, Annie, if you're absolutely sure, I would be honored to be Jack's godmother."

She hugs me tightly, squishing the baby between us. "Thank you so much, Johanna," she whispers against my ear. "That makes me feel so much better about all of this."

I lean back away from her grasp and use my now free hand to grip her chin and I look at her just as intently as she always looks at me. "I take it back," I tell her. "If you're planning to bring him to 12 when Haymitch and I will both be there and leave him to be alone or kill yourself to be with Finnick or something, I take it back."

She doesn't cover her ears or fight back, she simply exhales deeply and stares at me. "Jack needs me, Johanna. I'm never leaving him, not ever if I can help it. I just want to make sure that if I can't help it, like Finnick couldn't, that he's not alone. That's all."

I let go of her chin and relax. Maybe I shouldn't, but I trust what she said because of how much Jack looks like his father and Annie would never abandon anything that reminded her of Finnick. "Okay, then I'm back in. If you're really sure you want to trust me and Haymitch with your son."

She smiles and shrugs. "I do. I trust you both, just like Finnick and Mags did."

I'm beginning to question their sanity, trusting such people, but I'll take what I can get. "In that case, thank you." I pass the baby back to her and stand up, trying desperately to ignore the itch. "I'm going to go find Gale and see if he'll sit with me while I take a bath. You and Jack look like you need a nap."

She takes my hand and I help her to her feet. "That sounds like a very good idea, doesn't it, Jack?" she says as she carries him inside, completely oblivious to me now.

I make sure they're settled in her bedroom; Katniss' mother left me in charge while she went to work and Gale made a few repairs to Annie's house, and then I go find the man I can't, or maybe just don't want to, bathe without.

Given that when I find him, he's covered in sweat and sticky with sand, I'm not really surprised when he agrees easily to what I'm asking. I lead the way to the bathroom, trying to think too much about the sound of him stripping off his shirt and pants as he walks. Trying not think about it just makes me think about it more, though, and I pull my sundress, another borrowed one, over my head and toss it back at him just as we reach the bathroom.

One big difference between Gale's apartment in 2 and Annie's house is the size of the bathtubs – Annie's is huge. I'm conflicted about this. On the one hand, that means that there's more water, more of a threat, and that bothers me. On the other hand, Gale could, if he were so inclined, get in the tub with me and I wouldn't need to be literally in his lap. I feel like that should be an entirely good thing, but I'm not so sure. A part of me doesn't really like it and a part of me really does like it.

By the time I've thought through all that, and come to no firm conclusion at all, Gale's filled up the tub and is staring at me with an amused look on his face. "Do you want me to get in with you?"

Thankful that he hasn't made a big deal about my reason for suddenly wanting a bath and simply accepted that I did, I nod. "Yeah, there's room. But I think we should strip off everything, don't you?"

"Your bath, you're the boss," he agrees easily, leaning over and pouring something out of a bottle and into the steaming water. "Some of sort of bubble soap," he explains when I grab his arm. "I followed the directions on one of the bottles you bought."

Any anger or frustration fades when the scent of pine fills the room. It seems out of place in District 4, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I shimmy out of my underwear, the only clothing I have left, and approach the claw foot tub cautiously. Gale holds my arm as I step in and lowers me into the warm water and pine scented bubbles. I'm distracted enough by it all that I don't notice him strip the rest of the way and get in, until his knee bumps against my own.

Without saying a word, Gale hands me a cloth and a bar of soap, keeping a cloth for himself and taking the soap when I pass it to him. We stay on opposite sides of the tub and clean ourselves thoroughly. I'm done much faster than he is, but I imagine that is because of the deeply ingrained fear of water that I'm beginning to think I'll never be rid of. What's different this time is that I don't immediately flee the bathtub. Instead, I sit in the warm, pine scented water and shamelessly watch Gale scrub at his bronzed skin.

"Want me to get your back?" I ask him boldly, wanting to somehow give him something in return for all that he's done for me.

He turns around in answer, giving me full access to his back. After two weeks on the beaches of District 4, he doesn't try to hide his scars anymore and I barely notice them. What I do see is that he's tense – probably because it's almost time to face District 12. But I can do something about tension. People have told me that I give excellent massages so, with a soapy washcloth, I start Gale's massage.

I can't reach all the places I want to and straddling him from behind is awkward so I drop my hands long enough to get on my knees behind him. "Don't stop," he blurts out when I move around. "Unless you want to," he adds quickly.

"Relax there, Hawthorne," I say, grabbing his shoulders and keeping him where he should be, "I'm just switching positions. Although I have to admit I didn't think you'd be a massage lover."

"I've never had a massage," he admits, being good and facing away from me, "so I couldn't say one way or the other, but that feels very, very good."

"Finally, something I can do to make you feel better." Saying those words silently in my mind would have been nice, but new Johanna rules the day and she wants to say them out loud. But old Johanna is still around enough to indulge in a little self-deprecation. "Just ignore me if I say something stupidly sappy, okay? That's totally not me, blame Snow."

"I will, and I do," he agrees, "but has anyone ever told you that you massage a lot more painfully when you're talking at the same time?"

I can't help but snort in appreciation of his candor, and then I duly shut up and go back to the proper way of massaging tense muscles. I only stop when the water gets cold and most of the bubbles have disappeared into the air. "Ladies first," he says gallantly, keeping his back to me.

I put my hand on his shoulder to steady myself and step out of the tub, grabbing a fluffy white towel and wrapping it around my body. "All covered, Mr. Modesty," I declare, smirking even though he can't see me.

"Not all of us can have your exhibitionist nature, Mrs. Shameless," he retorts, stepping out of the tub and turning a little to the side to reach for his own towel.

I don't know if he's forgotten I'm still in the room or if he's deliberately trying to prove my comment about modesty wrong, but I can see just about everything there is to see on his body. I don't look away and I'm admittedly a little sad when he wraps the towel around his waist and turns to me. "See something you like?" he asks with a smirk that tells me he knew full well what I could see.

"That's for me to know and you to find out," I remind him, giving a mischievous grin of my own. "Oh, and that's Ms. Shameless to you, thank you very much."

He laughs deeply, the smile briefly reaching his eyes. "I think I've already found out, Mason. Anyway, before I forget, I've got most of my stuff packed and ready to go. I know you've been shopping a lot so, if you need it, there's space in my brown leather bag."

"Shopping a lot?" I squawk, deliberately summoning outrage I don't really have. "You make me sound like a typical girl. One from the Capitol even."

"Well, in your own defense, you are definitely not remotely Capitol," he points out diplomatically, but playing along with my theatrics, "and you're anything but typical. But you are a girl and you did shop."

"Says the boy who bought a bunch of crap for his brothers and sister."

He puts his hands on my shoulders and turns me to face the door. "Stay like that," he warns me as I hear the towel fall to the floor. "And I did not buy crap for them, ever. Never mind the fact that you bought Posy that stationery set."

"I was a little girl once, you know," I remind him, turning around because he's already dressed. "Pink and glitter are really very common themes. I'm getting dressed now, stay and watch if you like or go."

He opts to go, of course.

Sighing, I pull on my pants, shirt, and boots before I pull my short hair back into a ponytail. I'm taking two dresses that I bought with me but leaving the ones Annie lent me behind, even though she said I could keep them. Girl things and definitions thereof aside, I just don't find dresses all that practical, especially not in a district that is still rebuilding from being firebombed. After all, the very last thing I want is to stand out and remind everyone that I'm a victor.

Our train leaves in the morning and I want to sleep tonight, where I've finally got comfortable enough to sleep – as long as I know Gale's nearby – before I go somewhere that requires yet another readjustment before I can sleep at all.

It doesn't really help much that he's going to his family and I'm just tagging along, with Haymitch and Katniss and Peeta counting as the people I know best of all.

The very idea is unnerving enough that I doubt I'll really be able to sleep tonight.


	9. Chapter IX

**Don't own it.**

_I know I'm updating quickly these last few chapters, but don't get spoiled. Basically, I'm a few chapters ahead writing this so whenever I happen to finish a chapter, I'll post one. And cross my fingers that you're still here to read it! It won't ever be too long – I hate waiting so I promise not to make you wait forever!_

* * *

**LEARNING TO LIVE AGAIN**

Chapter IX

_Thump-thump thump. Thump-thump thump. Thump-thump thump._

The rhythm of the Peacekeepers' boots is eerily flawless. Never a step out of time.

Peacekeepers marching shouldn't be torture, but it is. It's torture because they're only marching in place and they never get any closer. I wish they would get closer. I wish they would move and come to me and torture me. Physical pain would be so very much better than psychological torture of the noise that never ends. At least I could pass out into a world of unconsciousness.

The white uniformed soldiers finally arrive and grip my shoulder. Old Johanna flashes back to life and lashes out with all her strength.

My fingers are bent backward with enough force that I snap back into reality. The reality I see isn't one I like and it doesn't take me long to take stock of what's real and what isn't.

Not real are the thumps of Peacekeeper boots. The thumps are actually the noise of the train wheels as they move along the tracks toward District 12.

Also not real are Peacekeepers sent to torture me. They didn't alert me to their presence by gripping my shoulder, Gale Hawthorne did.

Gale Hawthorne is currently sitting on the bench across from me in the compartment that we are the only occupants of. That would be all well and good except for the fact that he's cupping one hand over his shoulder and there's blood seeping out from between his fingers. Oh, and there's blood on my ax, which is on the bench next to him. That's real.

"It's my fault," he says before I can so much as a sigh. "I should know better than to wake a sleeping victor. I do know better."

"Now," I mutter sarcastically, leaning forward to try and get a better look at his wound. "Was I screaming?"

Stubbornly refusing to move his hand, he shakes his head. "No. You were just rigid and whimpering. That's probably why I thought I could touch you."

I don't like to hear that I was whimpering but that isn't important just now. "Let me see how bad it is."

"It's fine," he says, not moving his hand.

I eye the wound doubtfully, it's still bleeding pretty heavily. "It's not fine. Let me see." To make my point, I move to sit next to him and pull at his wrist.

He gives in easily, too easily and I can see that that the wound is deep and still bleeding heavily. Tearing off the sleeve of his shirt, I bind the gash tightly and, telling him not to move an inch, leave the compartment in search of a doctor or a worker. I find the conductor himself and he recognizes me, agreeing to stop early for refueling so I can get off and find a doctor for Gale. The conductor doesn't ask how someone on his train got wounded, but that could have something to do with the handful of coins I pass him.

We're in District 10 when the train pulls into the station, not the best district for advanced medicine but it'll have to do. In a stroke of luck, the conductor catches up to Gale and me just as we step off the train. Originally from District 10, he gives us specific directions to his brother-in-law's apothecary. He promises to hold the train as long as he can but tells us that he has to be out by nightfall. If we can't be on that train, we'll have to spend the night but, where the train we're currently on still has to stop in 11, tomorrow's train is a straight trip to 12. "Thanks for stopping," I tell the conductor, "but I kind of hope we have to spend the night."

He nods in understanding. "Good luck."

Guiding Gale, I follow the directions and find the apothecary shop. "Are you a doctor?" I demand, stepping into the dusty shop and spotting the old man in the back corner.

"Trained by doctors, no fancy Capitol degree," he replies, eyeing me suspiciously. "Why? What do you need?"

"My friend is hurt and bleeding heavily. He needs to be stitched up. Can you do that?"

He slides off his stool and approaches us cautiously. His tufts of uncombed white hair and the fact that he's half a foot shorter than me make the situation nearly absurd, but something about his bearing make him seem trustworthy and competent, if entirely ordinary. But the first thing he says surprises me. "You're Katniss Everdeen's cousin," he declares, looking up at Gale with an odd look. "Aren't you?"

I hold my breath while Gale answers; if we've inadvertently walked into the shop of someone who doesn't like Katniss Everdeen, we're going to have a problem. "I am," Gale replies evenly, apparently just as wary as I am.

"How is she?" he asks. In an instant, his face turned into a grandfatherly look of worry, concern, and pride. "You don't have to tell me. Just know, and maybe tell her, that we're all proud of her and honored by the sacrifices she made for the people of Panem."

"I'll tell her that," Gale promises solemnly.

The old man nods and gestures toward a wooden chair that may be older than he is. "Sit there. I'll get what I need to fix your up."

I stay with Gale while the old man potters around his shop. "Not jealous, are you?" he asks me in a whisper.

I let the roll of my eyes be my answer.

The would-be doctor is back before either of us can say anything else. He cleans the wound, assures us that the excess blood is just from a particularly finicky vein that was punctured, stitches it up, and bandages it. "Keep the wound clean, change the bandage, and get the stitches taken out in about ten days," he tells us, "and everything will be just fine."

Glancing out the dusty window, I see that we still have time to make the train. Glancing at Gale, I see that he looks a little worse for wear after all the blood loss. "Do you know any place nearby where we could spend the night?" I ask the old man.

"Well, there's the Victor's Village," he said thoughtfully, "but you're not victors. The only hotel in town burned down during the rebellion. I've got an extra bedroom upstairs you're welcome to, since you're friends of Katniss."

I blink in dismay and apparently grip Gale's elbow too hard because he groans, coughs, and answers for us. "The room above the shop would be perfect. The train leaves early, so we won't be any trouble to you at all."

"Let me show you up," he says, nodding agreeably as he makes his way toward a rickety, winding set of stairs at the back of the shop. "I'll bring up some food and drink for you. I'm afraid there's only the one bed, though. Extra blankets and pillows, though, if you want them."

"Still perfect," Gale assures him, not fighting me when I keep my hands on his waist as I follow up him up the stairs.

The old man, whose name I no longer care to know, leaves with a promise of food and drink in an hour, and I nudge Gale onto the bed.

"Not jealous, are you?" he says, repeating his question from earlier.

"Not victors, my ass," I mutter as I turn in a circle, taking stock of the small room – there is a bed but hardly room for more than that, in fact, Gale's District 2 apartment seems large by comparison. "Whatever. I'm sure Katniss will be thrilled to find out that everybody loves her still and everybody has duly forgotten me." I know she won't be thrilled to hear it, but it makes me feel better to say it.

"We can still go to the Victor's Village," Gale offers.

"No. There aren't any victors from here left. I hope they're letting people live there like they seem to be in other districts but I'm not going to march in, remind everyone who I am, and kick somebody out for the night. Besides, you need be close to the closest thing to a doctor tonight."

"It's okay to have a heart, you know. There's no reason to sound so angry about being nice and not kicking people out of their home because you're a victor."

I hold up my hands and sit down on the only chair in the room. "Just don't, okay? I hope he doesn't take long with the food, I'm hungry."

The old man returned an hour later with cheese, bread, and meat. He also turns over two bottles of liquor, telling me to use one to sterilize Gale's wound as needed but invites us to drink the rest. Doubting, and maybe hoping that we'll see him in the morning, I give him a handful of coins then and he disappears.

The cheese is delicious, the bread semi stale, and the meat dry enough that it's almost like eating leather. What makes the whole meal okay is the liquor. It's ridiculously potent and I've only swallowed a capful. "I think I'm drunk," I announce bluntly, to Gale's apparent amusement.

"You barely had a drop," he protests, reaching for the bottle. "Give me some. I'll prove that you're just a lightweight."

I carefully pour more into the cap and pass it to him. "We'll see. But I bet you announce you're drunk after two capfuls." I classily make my point with a burp.

Gale burps after exactly two capfuls. By the time I swallow my second and he his third, neither of us can pour without spilling. Spilling is bad because it means we can't drink as much so we mutually agree to stop drinking until we're steady enough to properly pour more. This decision is made only after an embarrassing amount of giggling and snorting on both our parts.

"How's your shoulder?" I ask, hardly noticing that I'm sprawled on top of his chest on the bed.

"What happened to my shoulder?" he replies thickly, his uninjured arm draped over me.

I make a noise that falls somewhere between a snort and a gasp. "And you said you wouldn't be drunk." My own voice slurred by the alcohol sounds like the funniest thing ever and it takes me a good two minutes to stop laughing too hard to explain. By then, though, I've completely forgotten what it is I'm supposed to explain. "What?"

"You asked about my shoulder," he explains as he rubs his fingers over my back. "I forgot what happened to my shoulder, but now I remember. You axed it."

'Axed it' is a very funny phrase and we laugh together for another few minutes.

"But seriously," I drawl once I've composed myself, "how is your shoulder? You know, the one I axed. The shoulder I axed."

Gale sucks on a piece of meat, because that's really all you can do without breaking a tooth or your jaw, and sighs. "I hardly remember I have a shoulder," he declares happily. "Forget using the liquor to sterilize it, I'll just drink myself into forgetting about it."

"Then you'd have to stay forever drunk when it gets infected and they chop it off," I point out, marveling at my own coherency.

Shrugging, he deems the meat soft enough to chew and does just that. "Haymitch does it."

"Not a good example, Hawthorne," I say, repeating his name three times for fun. "'Sides, you're going to feel different about your axed shoulder in the morning. Don't you think?"

"Probably," he agrees, shrugging as he somehow manages to burrow further into the bed. "I think I'm going to pass out soon. You can just sleep here, on me, if you want."

He's asleep before I can decide one way or the other and, for lack of a better option, I stay right where I am. I don't really sleep, though, and I know it because I don't have nightmares. That means I've passed out, not gone to sleep.

Gale nudges me awake before dawn in the morning. "Don't throw up on me," he warns me in a husky voice. "And don't slip when you get off the bed."

It takes me a minute, but I figure out what he's saying. "You threw up over the side of the bed?" I ask. It sounds to me like I'm yelling, but I'm really just whispering. It still hurts my head. "I really don't want to clean that up, Hawthorne. But I'll do it. After I sit up and see if I'm going to throw up." Somehow, I don't. I feel like the nefarious ax is sticking out my skull, but I don't get sick. Not even when I find a rag the old apothecary will never miss and clean up the mess. "Why did you wake me up so early? Torture?" I ask, turning back to check on Gale's wound – there's no blood on the bandage, a definite good sign.

"Train leaves soon," he replies as I help him sit up and he covers his eyes with the one hand I'll let him move; I'm putting his other arm in a sling whether he likes it or not. "I thought you should know it looks like rain too."

I glance out the window and sigh. Giving my splitting headache, I think I'd rather have dreary skies and pouring rain than clear skies and blinding sun. Gale laughs just once when I tell him so.

"Laugh all you like, cousin brainless, but I think we can both agree that neither of us are all that good at handling whatever is in that liquor."

"Mm-hmm," he hums as we get tangled up over whose going to tie the laces on his boots. "Let's just use that to keep my injury clean from now on, alright?"

"That, Hawthorne, I can agree to," I declare, snatching the laces and tying them. "Come on, I'll buy coffee on the way to the train station. I don't think I want to eat anything else. For weeks."

"Don't talk about food. My shoulder hurts and my head hurts, I can't decide which hurts the worst." He waits until we've left the apothecary and have cups of coffee in hand before he says anything else. "One more thing, Mason? Please don't take another nap on the train, okay?"

I nod in agreement, and instantly regret the action. "No talking, no sleeping. Not until District 12."


	10. Chapter X

**Don't own it.**

_Here's hoping this story is as much fun to read as it is to write!_

_Anyway, let's see what happens in District 12, shall we? Hope you like it!_

* * *

**LEARNING TO LIVE AGAIN**

Chapter X

I know that District 12 was firebombed by the Capitol.

Knowing it and seeing it are two different things entirely.

So much of the town is still little more than charred ruins, even if it is clear they have started to build again. That eight hundred people survived what happened to this place is kind of mind-blowing.

"You okay?" I ask Gale as we step into a street that's covered in a fine black dust that surely is made of both coal and human ash.

"I've been back before," he replies, careful to not actually answer my question as he looks around at the crews of people clearing debris or starting to rebuild.

I can understand his wariness so I let him have it. "I meant your shoulder," I tell him with what I hope is just the right touch of sarcasm in my voice.

"It's been better."

It's kind of amazing how Gale and I are have gotten so comfortable around each other that we can ask each other one question and answer two at the same time. Both Gale and his shoulder have been better, just as I expected. "Where to?" I ask when I realize he isn't moving. "Straight to the Victor's Village or did you want to see something else first?"

He takes a long time to answer, and he surprises me when he does. "Want to see where I grew up? What's left of it, anyway?" Without waiting for me to answer, he uses the hand not bound by the sling to lead me through the town square. "It actually looks better now, now that there's nothing left," he says as we walk into what a hand-painted sign declares to be _The Seam_. Gale stops suddenly and points to a badly charred pile of bricks. "That was our fireplace."

I try to picture a fireplace, a house around it, five people living in the house. I compare the fireplace to the similar piles of brick I can see not all that far away. It must have been like home, for me, but it must have been even worse. "Where were the mines?"

He points down a road, and I wonder how I missed the black dust clouds being sporadically belched into the sky. "But the woods, where I hunted with Katniss," he says, putting his hand on my shoulder and turning me toward what he'd obviously rather remember, "are over there."

"Electric fence?"

Gale smirks and nods. "We didn't get electricity often here, only when there was required viewing, really. As long as you were careful, it was easy enough to duck behind a bush and slide under the fence."

Brushing my hand over the back of his shirt, I take the opportunity to smirk. "Not always so easy, was it?"

"I hunted a lot of days without getting caught," he points out. "I hardly count the one time I did."

"Sometimes it's better that way, isn't it?" I ask rhetorically. "Anyway, will you take me out there sometime?"

"Of course, but don't tempt me to do it today. I just might run away and never come back."

"Then we should stop looking that way and do what we came to do," I remind him. "Let's go."

Before we get out of the Seam, Gale is stopped by a man and a woman, and the woman hugs him tightly before asking about his shoulder.

"I got in a fight," he replies, shrugging it off as he lets go of her. "Bristel, Thom, this is Johanna Mason. Johanna, this is Bristel and Thom."

"You were in District 13," I say, kind of proud of myself for remembering random faces of people I never talked to, even though I was in a morphling induced haze so much of the time.

The woman, Bristel, nods. "We were on the same crew as Gale in the mines too." She turns away from me and back to him. "Does your mother know you're here?"

"No, it's a surprise. She really lives in the Victor's Village?"

Thom sort of grunts in confirmation. "Yeah, the house closest to town. All the houses except one by Katniss' are lived in. Your family got a house because, I guess, you're so important now."

Feeling Gale tense beside me, I pinch his elbow. "Nice to meet you two, again," I tell them as politely as old Johanna – whose made a reappearance – can muster, "but we should go find his family so I can change the bandages on his shoulder."

Gale doesn't say anything as we emerge from the Seam and head down the main road toward the Victor's Village. It's kind of eerie how the town square, the poorest part of town, and the village seem to be set up exactly the same as in District 7.

"You should greet them alone," I tell him, stopping just at the curve of the road.

"What will you do?"

I shrug and glance at the houses. "Find Haymitch? I'll be alright, Hawthorne. Your family never tortured you, so you can do this. Be strong."

"You won't come with me?"

The sad, slightly pathetic look on his face almost makes me give in, but I don't. "No. I can't. How could you explain me to your mother? Look, just go and see them. Don't talk about anything deep and heavy, not yet. Save that for later. There's plenty of time for it. Just let your mother hug you and tell you that you should come home more, hug your sister and tell her you got her letters, and let your brothers do what they will. None of them will bring up hard stuff now."

He scowls for only a second and then exhales deeply. "I'm being ridiculous, aren't I?"

I nod, smiling when he groans. "Just go. Come find me if you need me. If everything's going fine, I'll see you in the morning to change your bandage."

Pointing to a particular house, he takes his bag from where I have it slung over my shoulder. "That's where Haymitch lived before. Don't let him drink all the liquor."

"He'd be dead and I feel like he's important so, no, I won't let him," I promise, squeezing his hand just once as new Johanna comes back. "Good luck."

As I walk toward Haymitch's house, a flock of geese appear out of nowhere and their honking is loud enough to wake the dead – an admittedly bad analogy considering the state of the district. Kicking them randomly out of my way, I only have to kick one before the others scatter, I climb the steps and find myself in front of Haymitch's door.

Apparently having been alerted by the ruckus, he pulls the door open and gapes at me in surprise. "What are you doing here, Johanna?" he demands, once he's recovered from the apparent shocking of finding me on his doorstep.

"Can't a victor drop in on another victor?" I ask dryly, pushing by him and stepping inside his house. "After all, there aren't many of us left."

"I know that, we just don't like each other much so I don't expect us to visit."

"What? Beetee and Enobaria haven't been around?" I sit down on the sofa he motions me toward, dropping my bag on the floor at my feet.

"No," Haymitch answers, sitting down across the room from me. "Have you seen them?"

"Not really, no. But I did just come from Annie's." I can't help but smile as I mention her. "She had the baby. It's a boy. She named him Jack because that's strong and brave and ordinary."

"And another word for sailor," he finishes. He takes a deep breath and leans back in his chair. "I'm glad she didn't name him after his father. That wouldn't be fair to the kid and it wouldn't be good for her."

I nod in agreement and slide off my jacket off. "She's bringing him here as soon Katniss' mother says she can travel. Something tells me Katniss' mother won't be coming along."

"Yeah?" Haymitch says, raising an eyebrow before he paws through a pile of things and triumphantly holds up a bottle. "Why's that?"

"She said it'd be good for Katniss to see me," I explain, deliberately leaving out any mention of Gale. I'm going to have to tell him about Gale, though, in case he thinks Katniss should not see him because she'll shoot him or something. "How is she?"

He shrugs, but still hasn't drunk from the bottle. "Seems better, I suppose. Ever since Peeta got back, she's been talking some and keeping herself clean. How are you?"

I desperately search for a way not to answer that question and finally settle for using Gale. Again. "Good and bad, you know the drill. Anyway, Haymitch, you should probably know that Gale Hawthorne is in District 12. I, um, ran into him, and came back with him. He's with his family. Should I tell him to avoid Katniss?"

"Tell him not to sneak up on her, especially if there's a bow nearby," he answers with a careless shrug. "His life, his choices."

"You just boatloads of help, aren't you?" I don't really expect anything less from him and, if you think about it enough, he makes sense. "Anyway, how's Peeta?"

For once, he looks hopeful. "Better. He has flashbacks sometimes, but he knows when they're coming and does what he needs to do. It's easier for him to figure out what's real and what's not." Hopefulness changes to skepticism on his face in an instant. "Now, Johanna, if Katniss or Peeta asked me how you were, whatever would I tell them? You didn't answer my question."

"I don't have to. But I will. You can interpret it as you will. I can count the number of baths I've taken since I left 13 on one hand. But I have swum in the ocean." I look at him critically. "What about you, since we're sharing? What's with the geese and why haven't you drunk from that bottle?"

"We don't get alcohol all the time, so I raise geese when I can't drink. When I can, the geese raise themselves." He makes it sound like it's the most normal thing in the world – he's wrong. "I try, and probably fail, to keep Katniss from cracking up. I try, and sometimes succeed, at keeping Peeta from cracking up. That's my story."

"It's a good one. Do you have food?" I ask, standing up and walking toward his kitchen. "I haven't eaten since yesterday."

He follows me, switching on the light and gestured toward the room at large. "Help yourself. There's lots of baked goods, seeing as that's how Peeta copes. Why the hell haven't you eaten since yesterday?"

My eyes lock a loaf of bread that seems to be right out of the oven, given the wafts of steam rising from it. "I had a hangover this morning and then I was on a train. The two didn't seem to give me an appetite for some reason. Especially after I may or may not have stuck an ax in Gale's shoulder the day before on the train when I fell asleep," I added around a mouthful of bread. "God, this is good bread. I knew he was a baker, but I didn't know he was this good."

Haymitch looks, for just a moment, like a proud father. "Yeah, he's good. May or may not have stuck an ax in his shoulder, huh? What did he do, try to wake you up?"

I nod, unwilling to stop eating the bread.

"You'd think he'd know better," he says with a sad shake of his head. "Anyway, you can sleep here if you want. You'll know which room is mine, don't sleep there. I've got to go make sure Katniss is in for the night. Even if she usually leaves as soon as I do."

"You did tell us that she doesn't listen to anyone," I point out, pausing only long enough to consider whether or not I want to eat the rest of the loaf – I do. "At least she's still like that."

He touched two fingers to his forehead. "There is that."

"Do you check on Peeta too?" I ask curiously.

"Sometimes. He doesn't run away in the night like she does so I'm not so worried about him. Usually, if he needs something, he stops me as I cross his yard to hers." He stops with his hand on the doorknob and looks at me. "You can go over if you want. His light's still on. He'll probably give you more bread."

I debate this briefly, wondering if I should wait and see them both together, see them both together with Gale, see them separately with Gale, never see either of them, or just let the chips fall where they will. The decision to go see Peeta doesn't take long. All things considered, he seems the saner of the two. That, and I don't really look forward to explaining to Katniss that it was me who convinced her not-cousin, the one she blames for her sister's death, to come back.

"You do what you want, Johanna," Haymitch says, chuckling at my indecision, "I'm going to Katniss'."

Stuffing the last bite of bread in my mouth, I dash back into the other room for my jacket and follow him outside, too chicken to approach the house on my own. Damn new Johanna.

Haymitch stops at the house on the right side of his and knocks on the back door. "Look who showed up," he says to Peeta, jerking his thumb at me before stepping back into the darkness. "Let me know if you need anything."

I scowl at him before he turns his back to me, then rearrange my face into something close to a smile for Peeta. He's thinner and scarred by fire, but his blue eyes are clear – if a little sad.

"Johanna," he says as if he can't quite believe it's me. "Do you want to come in?"

"She wants more bread!" Haymitch yells as he reaches Katniss' house. "She ate mine!"

I step into Peeta's kitchen, and I'm about to tell him not to pay attention to Haymitch when my mouth waters at the smell of fresh baked bread. I gratefully take some from him and sit down across the table from him. We make small talk about what we've been up to, and we're both careful not to go into too many details about things like mental health. I tell him about baby Jack and show him a photograph Annie had given me for him. Peeta's less wary than I am about Haymitch being the baby's godfather; he sees something deeply paternal in his mentor that I've only seen flashes of.

"You've been alone all this time?" he asks me when there's an awkward lull in the conversation.

He's worried about me. It's very strange having so many people worry about me. But it's comforting. So comforting that I tell him about the last weeks I spent with Gale Hawthorne.


	11. Chapter XI

**Don't own it.**

_After this, updates will be a tad more sporadic as I've caught up in posting to where I want to be. It won't ever be long, I promise. That being said, thank you all for the reviews that I haven't responded to because I've been too busy writing! And as I post more slowly, I'll reply to reviews and thank you properly!_

_I hope you like this…_

* * *

**LEARNING TO LIVE AGAIN**

Chapter XI

I wake up on Peeta's couch to the smell of baking bread – it's really the only way I'm sure about where I am. "Shit," I mutter, digging myself out from underneath a blanket I don't remember draping over myself. "Peeta?"

He appears in the kitchen doorway and smirks at me, for reasons I have yet to find out. "I'm at your house, right?" I ask, nodding when he does the same in confirmation. "Did Haymitch or Gale come looking for me?"

"Haymitch did, he said he saw Gale and that he said he was staying with his mother unless you needed him. I thought about trying to get you to go upstairs to bed," he said, eyeing me warily, "but I remembered what you said happened to Gale's shoulder so I just put a blanket over you."

"Thanks, Peeta." My stomach makes itself known to the world with an inhuman growl and Peeta smirks some more. "I don't suppose that bread I smell is for breakfast?" I ask, just owning my hunger.

"It is. Help yourself to anything you want except the cheese buns."

I follow him into the kitchen and peer at the array of breads, buns, and pastries on the wooden table in amazement. My attention is briefly distracted by the table itself. "First thing, the leg on your table is loose and about to fall off; do you want me to fix it? Second thing, did you sleep at all? Third thing, why can't I have the cheese buns?"

When Peeta smiles at me, I realize that I've never seen him really and honestly smile before. He looks different, very different. Like a kid who got used as a pawn in a game he didn't know he was playing. I shake those thoughts from my head and pay attention to his answers to my questions. "First, yes, please. I didn't know anything was loose. Second, I slept some. Third, you can't have cheese buns because they're for Katniss. If you really want some, I'll make more."

Careful to avoid the wobbly leg, I pull back a chair at the same time I reach for a pastry with raspberries on it. The sappiness of the cheese bun answer is too sappy to be dealt with this early in the morning. "It's very loose," I tell him confidently. "And I don't believe you slept at all. How could have slept when I came over so late and all this is freshly baked?"

He sits down across from me and wraps his hands around a cup of steaming tea. "Sleep comes and goes. It comes better when everything is in a nice, comfortable rut. Don't take this the wrong way, but it goes when my rhythm is upset. I don't usually bake this much."

I don't take it the wrong way because there's only one way to take it – my arrival upset his rhythm. It's not an offensive thought, it's simply fact. "You can't offend me," I assure him. "Besides, it's good for your rhythm to be upset once in a while. Life isn't a smooth road, you know. You have to get used to that."

Peeta laughs and reaches to pour tea into a cup for me. "Any more clichés to share, Johanna?" he asks impishly. "I may have to tell Dr. Aurelius that you're trying to take over his job."

"You still talk to that man? Not me."

"I had homicidal tendencies," he points out, somehow able to make light of even that although it's easy to see it still worries him, "you just couldn't bathe."

"Touché," I agree. "How are the homicidal tendencies, anyway?"

"I haven't tried to kill Katniss since I got back," he says with a shrug, "and I've only thought about it maybe five times. I still think about her in terms of a mutt sometimes, but it's more like I can't decide if she's the mutt or if I need to protect her from some other mutt."

"Sounds confusing," I declare, helping myself to another raspberry pastry. "Confusing, but a lot like progress. You spend time with her, then?"

Peeta nods, worry replacing the hope in his blue eyes. "When she'll let me, anyway. She still likes to be alone a lot of the time – less, but still a lot. And Haymitch keeps a good eye on us. Somehow he seems to know when one of us will have a bad moment and then, there he is."

"I think it's pretty safe to say that Haymitch Abernathy is a lot more on top of things than anyone has ever really given him credit for," I say in agreement, having formed that opinion even during my own Victory Tour.

"Aw, Johanna, I didn't know you liked me so much," Haymitch announces from the doorway. "Your, uh, travelling companion is outside if you needed to check on him or something. And Peeta, Katniss is up."

Peeta, and the plate of cheese buns, are gone in the blink of an eye.

"She really loves those cheese buns, doesn't she?" I ask Haymitch as I put the cups and my plate in the sink. I will not let him see me run outside to Gale – even if I kind of want to do just that.

"It's the first food she actually asked for," he replies with a tired shrug. "Before he got back, she was eating a little of whatever we happened to put in front of her. Oh, and I told her you're here, she wants to see you so don't avoid her."

"Did you tell her Gale's here?" I'm dreading the answer to the question even before I ask it.

"Didn't have to, Posy ran over and announced it before I could get there. She's okay with it. I hid her bow and arrows," he adds as an eerie afterthought. "Go on, Mason, go see the boy. I know you want to. Besides, you've got to meet the family."

I ignore his wink and put my jacket on. "Go drown yourself in liquor, Abernathy," I tell him as I head out of the kitchen.

"I would, but pestering you is a lot more fun and it hasn't worked yet so why would it just because you tell me to," he yells back good-naturedly. "And if you actually care about Hawthorne, I may have to go sober to pay attention and enjoy this show."

I ignore him some more and cross the road to meet Gale, who is standing outside in the grass. "What's Haymitch yelling about?" he asks when I stop in front of him.

"It's Haymitch, who the hell knows?" I say, using a neat dodge of the actual question. "How'd it go last night? I heard your sister was pretty excited and ran straight over to tell Katniss this morning."

"They were all happy," he admits, an honest smile on his face. "After the kids fell asleep, my mother lectured me for a while about coming home more often. I deserved that, though."

"Sure did," I agree, kicking at stone in the grass. "Did you tell her you're staying?"

Rolling his injured shoulder tenderly, he nods. "She cried. Made me feel worse for not coming home sooner, but I deserved that too, didn't I?"

"Probably." If Gale really wants to have a pity party, I won't deny him the pleasure. "Oh, Peeta says you're an idiot for waking me up with checking me for weapons first."

"Yeah, well, my mother asked what happened to my arm. I told her you threw an ax at me," he counters. "She wants to talk to you."

I kick the stone harder and send it flying across the road. "You better have told her the actual story."

"I did, Mason," he says, smiling to show me that he's only teasing – as much as he can be because I think his mother actually wants to talk me. "But she really does want to talk to you. I told her how we went the 4 together, and that I woke a sleeping victor without checking her for weapons when I knew she had an ax. It won't be bad, I promise. Come?"

With as reluctant a sigh I can muster, I take a step toward his mother's house and breathe a sigh of relief when he falls in step beside me. Just as we reach the door, a little girl appears next to Gale and jumps up to push the door open for us.

"You're pretty stealthy there, Posy," he laughs, waving me in ahead of him.

"I've been watching Katniss," she announces proudly. "She's always sneaking around Peeta's house."

Gale and I exchange amused glances before Mrs. Hawthorne meets us in the center of the room. "You remember Johanna Mason?" Gale asks her.

"It's good to see you again, Mrs. Hawthorne," I say as politely as my aunt taught me when I was growing up. "How are you?"

The first part of her answer is directed at Gale. "Better now that my family is all in one place. But please, Johanna, call me Hazelle?"

I nod and sit down the chair she motions toward. I'm secretly seething at myself that I didn't ask Gale exactly what she thought of him traveling with me. I don't know what to say, so I don't say anything. I've found that it's the best way of avoiding trouble on the whole.

She apparently doesn't know what to say either, because she sits across the room from me and Gale – he sat down next to me – and just watches us. It's Posy who saves us all from a very long, very awkward time. "Did you see what Gale brought me, Johanna?" she asks, holding out the beaded bag.

It's all I can do to not actually smack myself in the head. "Yes, he did," I tell her, reaching into the bag I brought with me and set on the floor by my chair. "Actually, I was there when he bought it. I bought you something too. Here you go."

Her face lights up when she sees the arts and crafts set. "Thank you so much, Johanna!" she squeaks excitedly. "I love it so much! Look, Mom, I have pink ink now. Actual ink!"

Kids are still very much not my thing but Posy's excitement is weirdly infectious. "I can, um, show you how to make your own paper and dye it pink, if you want," I offer her warily, all but certain she'll turn me down.

She doesn't. Instead, she squeals and bounces at the same time. "Yes, please! And thank you!" Then she turns on her heel and races out of the room, shouting for her brothers who I haven't seen yet.

"I didn't get them anything," I tell Gale through clenched teeth, while still smiling at his mother.

"I didn't give them what I got them yet," he whispers back, "we can say it's from both of us."

"You don't have to give the boys, or Posy, gifts," Hazelle tells us, making it clear that she's on top of everything. "Either of you. They already like you, Johanna, and they love you, Gale. No matter what happened at any point in the past."

Before either of us can respond to her, Posy returns with her brothers in tow. Rory has grown since I saw him last; he's a little taller but he looks a lot older – maybe Gale was all too right about him loving Katniss' sister more than any twelve year old should love anyone. Gale gives them the books and model kits and tells them that I helped picked them out. They thank me with polite hugs and kisses on the cheek before Hazelle sends all three kids off to school. I wish she'd let them stay. Especially when Gale jumps up and offers to walk them to school. I'm going to kill him later.

"Johanna?" Hazelle says when we're alone. "Your life is absolutely none of my business, but I want you to know that it doesn't matter to me who you are or what you've done so long as you don't hurt my son. He's hurts himself far more than enough. If you've found some safety and comfort with him, I'm happy for you. If you've given him some safety and comfort, I'm even more happy. I just…" she twists her thin hands together and exhales deeply, "I just don't want anyone to hurt anymore. Does that sound ridiculous?"

I shake my head and stand up. "Not at all, Hazelle," I tell her solemnly, "after I saw Annie give birth, that's exactly how I feel. Can I make you some tea?"

She follows me into her kitchen and sits at the table while I make the tea. "Seeing a child born really does put everything into a different perspective doesn't it?" she says softly. "I don't think I could have gotten through my husband's death if Posy hadn't been born so soon afterward."

It makes sense that she says that, since Gale told me the difference between his mother and Katniss' was mostly Posy. But I don't say that out loud. Instead, I open up to her – something very much in line with new Johanna, but something I kind of like. "I wanted someone to pay for all that's happened here, in Panem. I thought, maybe, if someone did then it would make me feel better somehow. But then, when I saw that little baby who looks so freakin' much like his father, I knew it never would."

"I know what you mean," she says as I set the cups on the table. "For a little bit, I wanted Primrose's death, and what happened to Katniss, to be avenged somehow, but then I realized that Rory and Vick and Posy never have to face a reaping. That seems somehow more important, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, it really does," I say, having never really thought of it the way her words make me think of it. "After all, Primrose and Finnick both died because someone was trying to avenge something, didn't they?"

Hazelle nods and, sensing that I'm too distracted, pours the water from the kettle into our cups. I've never had such a meaningful conversation with, well, anyone that could be defined as a stranger. We talk about it some more as we drink our tea, but mostly we just sit quietly until she has to go to the job she has doing laundry for some of the families that don't have any other way to do it just yet.

I'm still at the kitchen table when Gale comes back.

"Are you mad at me?" he asks, standing behind me.

"For abandoning me when I was nervous already?" I ask without turning around. "I was, but I like your mother. And, more shockingly, I think she might like me."

"I think she liked you in 13," he suggests, finally coming around to face me. "Will you change the bandages on my shoulder?"

I give an overdramatic groan and push back my chair. "Fine, since we should have changed it last night." I follow him into the bathroom and set up what I'll need. "Are you ready to face Katniss when we're done here?"

His nod is answer enough.


	12. Chapter XII

**Don't own a word of it.**

_You're all lovely, remember that!_

_Katniss makes an appearance here … I hope you like it!_

* * *

**LEARNING TO LIVE AGAIN**

Chapter XII

When we get to Katniss' house – Haymitch, Hazelle, Rory, Vick, and Posy are all trailing us for some reason – Peeta calls out for us to come in, so we do.

Katniss is backed up against the far wall of the main room and Peeta's standing a few feet away from her. Her hair is in the usual braid, and she's thin and pale, but other than the burn scars that are faint on her neck and face, the most striking thing about her is the fear in her eyes.

"Hi, Catnip," Gale says softly. I can feel the tension in his body beside me as he waits for her to react.

"What happened to your shoulder?" she asks, her voice hoarse from what I have to guess is lack of use.

"An ax," he replies simply, and her eyes go automatically to me. I shrug and pat my belt where the weapon in question hangs once again. "Not my fault," I say in my own defense. "He woke me up from a nightmare without checking me for the weapon he knew I had."

Katniss nods, but that's her only movement. "Are you okay?" she asks him after a long moment of silence. "Did you get medical treatment?"

"We went to an apothecary in District 10. He said it was deep, but no real damage. I'm just supposed to keep it clean and change the bandages," he explains, nodding toward me. "Johanna changed them just before we came over."

She nods again and gives a huff of impatience, frustration, or annoyance – I, for one, am not at all sure which. "Why are you all just standing there staring at me?" she finally demands. "If you're going to stay, sit down already. Haymitch already hid my bow. Which you will give me back later, Haymitch," she adds menacingly.

We all find places to sit – I pick a spot on the floor by the door while Gale's siblings crowd onto the couch with him while Haymitch and Hazelle find solo chairs and Peeta convinces Katniss to sit on the loveseat – but no one mentions the fact that Katniss has just pretty much said that she's very much willing to use her bow if she feels the need. Having been a tribute, and watched Blight fumble around as he tried to tell me how to survive, and having been a mentor, and having stared at kids while trying to figure out how to keep them from dying, and having been a survivor of torture, and having been stared at by everyone and their brother; I can safely declare this to be the most awkward non-conversation I've ever been involved in.

Mercifully, Posy breaks the silence by producing the gifts that Gale, and I, brought her and bouncing over to show them to Katniss and Peeta. Katniss pays enough attention to make the little girl happy, and Posy manages to wheedle a promise from Peeta to watch me teach her how to make paper so, if I leave and she forgets, he can help her. She's apparently not even thinking that Gale might stay.

I 'borrowed' a block of wood from Haymitch's house last night and I take it out now and start carving because, to be honest, I have nothing to offer the conversation … the one that will stop again once Posy runs out of things to say.

I don't know how much time passes before I notice someone walk across the floor and crouch beside me. "Johanna," Peeta whispers in my ear, "Katniss went to the kitchen to make tea. Do you have another picture of the baby to show her?"

A little peeved at myself for not having thought of that earlier, I pull a photo out of my bag. "It's even got her name on it," I tell him, halfway to my feet before I stop. "Wait. Is she going to flip out when she sees it? You know, like blame herself Finnick's death? Does she even know Annie was pregnant?"

"She may get upset, but Haymitch will go with you," he offers, shifting his weight nervously. "We haven't really talked about Finnick's death, but I think she knows he made a choice. And Haymitch told her Annie was pregnant."

In a crouch of my own, I lean forward and look past him to Haymitch – he's already on his feet and he nods toward the kitchen. Sighing deeply over the things I'll apparently now do for people, I finish standing up and go to the kitchen. "So that's where the cheese buns got to," I say, for lack of any better opening, when I spot them on the table.

If nothing else, I've confused her … which is probably better than surprise. "What? You can have a cheese bun if you want, Johanna," she tells me.

I wave it off and take the tin of tea off the shelf. "Oh no, Peeta told me they're just for you. The raspberry pastries were delicious, though. Anyway," since her hands are empty for the moment, I hand over the photo, "Annie had the baby. His name is Jack. I was there, they're both fine."

"Was my mother there?" she demands. "Did you see her?"

"Yeah, she gave me–" Katniss interrupts me before I can finish my sentence. "You can give it to me later. Was Gale there? You're traveling with him, was he there too?"

"Interrupt me again and I'll smack you, brainless," I warn her before I answer her question. "Yes, he was there. We left District 2 together. And I honestly don't know how much of that traveling idea is in the present tense."

"It's in the past?"

I shrug. "Maybe. I don't speak for Gale, obviously, but I'm kind of tired of being homeless. If you'll all have me here, maybe I'll stay."

Katniss' icy exterior melts and she looks like a kid again. "You should stay. We can all be crazy together."

It's weird to like the sound of that as much as I do. "Are you going to have a problem with Gale being here, if he decides to stay?" I ask to distract both her and me.

"We can't ever go back to how we were," she says slowly, as if she's thinking it through as she says it, "but maybe we can be friends again. In time."

"Good, I think you both need that. Anyway, if you say that, I'll make Haymitch give up your bow."

Katniss laughs, and I hear Haymitch still in the doorway – he never came all the way into the kitchen – apparently she hasn't laughed much at all. "I'm not going to shoot Gale, Johanna. No one has to worry about that. I promise."

"Good to hear, sweetheart," Haymitch says, finally stepping into the kitchen and handing over her bow and quiver of arrows. "Really good to hear."

We all have lunch at Katniss' and then I leave when the Hawthornes do, only I go to Haymitch's house because, whether he wants to admit it or not, Gale needs more time alone with his mother and siblings.

"What are you carving?" Haymitch asks as I follow him inside. "And where'd you get the wood?"

"It was lying around, and I'm carving something for Jack. I suppose. I'm not really sure. Can I sleep here tonight?"

"You actually going to sleep here or you going to end up at Peeta's again?" he asks as he pulls a bottle of liquor out of a cabinet. "Not that it really matters."

"I'll sleep here," I pout. "You're the one who told me to go see Peeta. Then he didn't want to wake me up so I ended up sleeping on his couch. It wasn't very comfortable."

"Wouldn't think so." He hands me my own bottle and pops the cap off his. "You can have the room at the back of the house for as long as you want. Cheers."

Getting drunk with Haymitch has never been hard and this afternoon is no different. By the time Peeta brings us sandwiches for dinner, I am drunk although not as drunk as I got off the liquor the apothecary in District 10 gave me and Gale. That's definitely a good thing as I'm not keen on the idea of ending up in bed with Haymitch. Again.

I don't, however, get drunk enough to tell him about the District 10 liquor. That'd probably just kill him. So I keep it simple with what he knows, and drink one of his bottles.

"I'm going to bed," I mutter when I can't get any more drops out of the bottle.

"Got your ax?" he asks me drowsily.

"Yep. Got your knife?"

"Yep," he replies, or grunts. "Let's neither of us wake the other one up."

"Deal," I call over my shoulder as I head for the stairs. "Happy nightmares, Abernathy."

"Same to you, Mason," he shouts after me.

I collapse onto the bed fully clothed and don't wake up until an incessant knocking is annoying the hell out of me. "What?" I growl, rolling over and catching myself millimeters from falling off the bed.

"Time to wake up," Gale says from where he's leaning against the doorframe. "Your ax is on your belt, so I thought knocking would work best of all."

"Why is time to wake up? Do I have something to do today?"

"Only if you want to. My mother and Peeta have decided to make a big dinner in honor of our surprise arrival on them," he explains, shrugging as if he doesn't understand. "She wants fresh game and things, though, and Haymitch convinced Katniss to go and she told me to ask you if you wanted to come."

"You, me, and Katniss?" I ask dubiously. "What am I? The bodyguard? Besides, you can't shoot with your arm in a sling, can you?"

"No, but Rory's coming along. Besides," he says, sticking his tongue out at me, "you said you wanted to see the woods. Why not start now?"

"Fine. I'm wearing the same clothes though," I warn him, walking past him and into the bathroom. While I take care of all business that doesn't involve doing more than pulling down my pants, I think about how I am so obviously the bodyguard on our little outing. Rory is apparently either a deterrent to violence or a buffer to keep from anyone having conversations that get too deep and meaningful. I think I feel worse for him than I do for myself.

By the time we're a half hour walk outside where the fence once was, or so they tell me, it's clear that Katniss and Gale can fall back into some sort of familiarity as they hunt. They don't talk, but they move together and work as a time without thinking. They also move away from Rory and me, so we split off to check the snares and traps he has set out. I make sure I'm never too far away from Gale and Katniss that a well-place ax couldn't reach them, but I let them have their time alone.

"I'm glad you brought Gale home," Rory tells me as he resets a trap after freeing the frog trapped under it.

"I didn't really bring him," I point out, looking over his head to where Gale and Katniss walk just a little below us. "He's a big boy, you know, he came on his own."

Rory shakes his head and brushes his hands on his pants. "He wouldn't have come without another reason to come. He came because you were."

It feels a little silly to argue with a kid, but Rory doesn't seem too much like a kid. "I wasn't, though. I went to 2 and told him I was going to 4. He tagged along to 4 and said he was coming here. It was him who brought me here."

He just nods at me. He's obviously decided he won the argument but he's too much of a gentleman to keep it going, not that I'm surprised by that given what Gale told me about his mother's views on how to treat women. "So," he says after a beat, "what do you think of District 12?"

I glance over my shoulder in the direction of the town and the back over the valley that spreads out before us. "Part of it is incredibly depressing, with good reason, but this part out here? It's beautiful."

"Is it a lot like District 7?"

"Trade the deciduous trees for conifers and it's almost exactly the same." I take a deep breath and stare at the trees that line the hills as far as I can see. "I could be happy here for a very long time."

"And this isn't even the best view," Gale says, coming up behind me. "I'll show that to you later. For now, we've got enough game, are you two done?"

"We just have to collect the herbs and stuff," Rory tells him as I eye the bulging game bags both Gale and Katniss carry. "But we can do that on the way back."

"We'll go through town and pass out what we don't need," Katniss explains when she catches me staring. "Gale and I have always done that." She doesn't see the look of surprise on Gale's face at the way she so casually says their names together and talks about the past. It's probably better that way.

We do just as she said and pass out the majority of the game on our way through town. It's slightly disconcerting when three older ladies – I'm not sure how they survived the fire-bombing, all credit to Gale – hug me tightly and thank me for keeping 'their' Katniss and Peeta alive. Although, to be honest, Katniss looks more uncomfortable about it than I feel.

"Haven't been out in public much?" I ask once we're safely on the deserted road to the Victor's Village.

"Second time," she murmurs. "How'd I do?"

"Fine by me," I reply with a shrug. "Probably best those women didn't hug you?"

"I've already shot an arrow at the one; the skinniest one. That's Greasy Sae, she took care of me when Haymitch was too drunk before Peeta came back."

"You didn't hurt her and she's apparently not afraid of you, so don't worry about it," I counsel as best I can. "What did you try and shoot her for?"

"She locked the cat outside. I hate the cat, or at least I did, so it was very strange to feel like I should shoot her for it when she was taking care of me."

Gale and Rory have walked ahead to Hazelle's house, leaving me and Katniss alone on the road. "Stop worrying about," I remind her. "Trying to make sense of things really isn't worth the effort sometimes, especially when the person in question clearly doesn't hold a grudge."

"You're probably right," she agrees reluctantly.

"Of course I am, brainless," I chirp smugly. "Now, can I wash up at your house after I get my stuff from Haymitch's? His bathroom looked suspicious this morning."

"Sure, brainless." She grins a little and takes a step toward Haymitch's. "You can stay with me too, if the rest of his place looks suspicious. We have been roommates before, after all."


	13. Chapter XIII

**Don't own it.**

_Sorry for the delay in posting a new chapter! I really am! But I lost the flow a little bit. I've got it back now and can tell you that the story will probably be 21 chapters, plus a possible epilogue._

_Thanks so very much for the reviews! And for just reading!_

* * *

**LEARNING TO LIVE AGAIN**

Chapter XIII

My hair is still mostly clean – I've been keeping it short so that it's easier to clean – so I just give myself a sponge bath of sorts in the bathroom of Katniss' house. We switch places when I'm done, and it doesn't sound like she does much more. But while she's in the bathroom, I decide to take a page out of Annie's book and I pull two dresses out of my bag. I put on a blue one and am holding the other one out to Katniss the moment she steps out the door. "Here, put this on," I instruct her. "If it's a celebration dinner of Gale being home, we should look nice."

She eyes the green dress I'm offering her doubtfully. "It's a dress, Johanna."

"Nothing gets past you, brainless," I sigh, rolling my eyes. "Come on, put it on. I'll even get Gale's sister to run around and tell everyone else to dress up so we won't be the only ones. Come on, you know you want to."

Obviously against her better judgment, she nods in agreement and takes the dress. "You have to get Posy to tell the boys."

Glancing out the window, I see that Posy is herding the geese across the lawn so I push the window open and lean out. "Hey, Posy!" I call to her. "Come in here."

She moves fast, leaving the geese to fend for themselves as she appears in the bedroom with us. "Did you want something?" she asks shyly, glancing back and forth between me and Katniss. "You look pretty in your dresses."

"Thank you," Katniss whispers as I crouch in front of the little girl. "We're getting dressed up for dinner since it's a happy celebration dinner. You think that's a good idea, don't you?"

Posy nods but chews her bottom lip worriedly. "I don't have any dress up clothes," she murmurs sadly. "There weren't any dresses in District 13 and my ones here got burned up."

"Wait!" Katniss gasps before I can say anything. She disappears into her closet and comes back with an armful of flimsy, fluttery shirts that are no doubt left over from her Victory Tour. She kneels on the floor beside Posy and dumps the shirts of the floor. "Let's find one we can turn into a pretty dress for you."

Posy's face lights up and we spend the next few minutes sorting through the pile until we settle on a pink top that has cap sleeves on a woman but short sleeves on a girl. The neck is just right to show off her shoulders so all we have to add is a belt of some sort. It's Posy who decides that the gold rope holding the curtain back just might be perfect, and it is. With her curly brown hair combed back into a ponytail by Katniss, she looks absolutely adorable.

"I don't have shoes to match," she declares, pouting just a little.

"We don't really either," I say thoughtfully, in part because it's very true – I forgot to buy girly shoes in District 4. "I know, let's have a dressed up and barefoot dinner. Nobody wears shoes, how's that?"

"I like it," Katniss agrees as Posy nods eagerly. "And let's only tell Hazelle so she can be dressed up pretty too. The boys can wear whatever they want."

"Look at you, Katniss Everdeen, being all girly and wanting to look pretty for the boys," I tease her. "Who would ever have thought it?"

"Says the girl who prefers no clothes," she counters with a wink. "And no, brainless, we are not having a naked dinner so get that idea out of your head right now."

"You need to come up with something else to call me," I tell her as I cover Posy's ears. "I call you brainless, brainless, and I wasn't thinking that at all."

Posy squirms away and darts to the door. "I'll tell Mommy to come here. Supper is almost ready so Haymitch can finish it for her." It doesn't escape my notice that she uses Katniss' hunting jacket to cover her dress as she hurries away.

"Has Peeta ever seen you in a dress that Cinna didn't strap you into?" I ask while we wait. The way she blushes at my question borders on hysterical. Maybe she is getting better after all, or turning into a normal girl, at least.

"Yes," she blurts out, surprising me. "Didn't they show it when he told the story about our first day of school? You mentored that year, didn't you?"

"Yes, but seriously, brainless? Six years old and in a dress your mother probably had to strap you into doesn't really count in the grand scheme of things."

She reaches out and taps my temple. "That's the day Peeta says he fell in love with me so it really does count in the grand scheme of things." Turning to her back to me, she says one last thing over her shoulder. "Brainless."

"Why are you two calling each other that?" Hazelle asks as she comes into the room with Posy. "That word doesn't really go with how pretty you both look."

"It's a term of endearment for us, I promise," I assure her. "Now, let's find you something to wear."

"And hurry," Katniss adds with a small laugh, "if you left Haymitch in charge of finishing dinner."

Hazelle is as thin as both me and Katniss but she still chooses to wear one of Katniss' mother's dresses that were left behind. With Posy on our side, we badger her into letting us at least accessorize her with a jacket and a scarf from Katniss closet. Once all us girls are as pretty as can be, yet still barefoot, we head downstairs and across the street. Given the mud still caked on Vick's hands, it's pretty clear the boys didn't feel the need to wash up.

With her sons sent to wash up, Hazelle takes Posy to the kitchen to make sure Haymitch hasn't ruined everything while Katniss and I go set the table. Gale and Peeta don't make an appearance until I'm setting the last spoon by the last plate.

"We timed that well," Gale remarks lightly, "girls in dresses and no work left to be done."

"Yeah, you left me to do it while the women got all gussied up," Haymitch mutters as he carries a steaming bowl of something to the table.

"Don't worry, Haymitch," Hazelle says as she follows him with another dish of food, "the boys will clean up when we're done eating."

"What do the girls have to do?" Gale protests as Peeta tries vainly not to nod in agreement, ever the good boy. "And don't say they helped get the food because Rory and I went with Katniss and Johanna and I'd bet anything that Peeta made all the bread."

"Fair enough." His mother glances at me and at Haymitch before she answers, smiling all the while. "Since Posy helped me earlier in the kitchen and helped Peeta with the bread, that means that only Vick hasn't done his share of the work but, since he can't wash everything on his own, you can help him."

"My arm is in a sling, Mother." It's all too easy to laugh at the look on his face as his mother admonishes him. He's going to do whatever she tells him to do, just not without a fight.

"Consider it your punishment for not coming home sooner," she tells him firmly but softly. "How about that?"

"And I'll be forgiven if I help Vick wash up?" he asks her.

"And if you don't leave again," she adds, winking up at him. "Now let's sit down and eat before it gets cold."

The next two hours are some of the strangest of my life, and I've experienced a lot of strange hours. But these are different.

Seated at the round table between Peeta and Vick, I feel like I'm part of a family. It's a sensation that I like, a lot, but one that's foreign to me.

We don't talk about the Hunger Games, the rebellion, the ones we loved who are dead now. We talk about funny things we've done, stupid things we've done, sweet things we've done. We make each other laugh and we make each other smile.

I know I'm not part of the family at this table, but it's easy to pretend like I am.

Too soon, though, the food is gone and Posy's asleep with her head on the table next to the plate that held her piece of cake. Hazelle carries her up to bed, telling the rest of us to stay as long as we like. Rory disappears quickly to his room to read the book Gale brought him and Katniss stands to leave, saying she'll have to be carried to bed like Posy if she stays any longer. We all know she's exhausted by the social day she's had and Haymitch follows her out the door.

I go outside before Gale can offer me to keep him and Vick company in the kitchen. It's not that I don't want to be around him, it's just that I need time alone.

I'm not alone for long, though.

Peeta sits down next to me on the stone bench in the yard and sighs heavily. "Are you okay, Johanna?"

"Fine," I lie flatly. "You?"

"Fine," he repeats just as unconvincingly.

"I want to belong here," I blurt out, against the better judgment of old Johanna, "but I don't. Not like everyone else who was at that table tonight."

"Everyone else, Johanna? I don't think so," he says softly. "Katniss is basically a Hawthorne and Haymitch thinks of her as his daughter. There were two people who didn't belong, and two people who want to."

"You didn't know the Hawthornes before…?" I let the question trail off because saying the rest would break the odd, tenuous serenity of the moment. "No," he says, picking on what I mean. "Every girl at school was in love with Gale and the boys, especially the ones from town, were thoroughly intimidated by him. So I knew who he was, but I didn't know him. I was jealous of him too."

"Because he got to spend time with Katniss?" I finish, guessing what he leaves unsaid.

"Because Katniss knew he existed," he corrects me. Taking a deep breath, he keeps talking before I can dwell on what he said. "Anyway, Haymitch knew, was friends with, Katniss and Gale's fathers so he might belong less than the rest, but he belongs."

I smile at him in the dying light of the day. "You remember all that on your own?"

He smiles back, shyly, and nods.

"Anyway, we may not belong exactly, but you and me will always have the Capitol." It sounds incredibly stupid to say and we both laugh. "Fun times, those were," he says, smirking into the night.

"Must be why we're sitting here laughing about it," I groan, flicking at a bug that landed on my knee. "We're either getting better or they totally screwed us up. Which do you think it is?"

Peeta thinks about it for a minute and then nudges my arm with his elbow. "I'm feeling strangely optimistic at the moment, so I'll say we're getting better. Think about it, Johanna, you've taken baths and I haven't tried to kill Katniss. Definite progress, I'd say."

"I'm coming to you for all my pep talks," I declare, nudging him back.

"Please do."

We stay outside until I shiver involuntarily from the cold night air. "Where are you sleeping tonight?" Peeta asks as we both stand up.

Keeping in mind what our conversation had been about, I grab his hand. "I'm sleeping with you. Well, not with you," I laugh, "but at your house. Outsiders stand together, right?"

I don't miss the look of relief in his eyes as he smiles. "Absolutely."

Gale calls out a goodnight as we cross his mother's lawn and we hear Haymitch snoring inside Katniss' house, so it's only right that we stay together. I go to a bedroom this time, and Peeta goes to his across the hall.

Sleep will be elusive again, I know, but I try anyway.

Somehow, I find it and I don't even have a nightmare. Not before the thunderstorm startles me back to awareness, although I'm not completely aware before I lodge my ax deep in the wood of the closet door. The resounding thwack of the blade meeting wood reminds me that it really is just a storm and I easily get my breathing under control. When thunder booms again, I hear a crash across the hall and leap to my feet.

Peeta's halfway down the stairs when I see a flash of lightning glint off the knife in his hand. On instinct, I launch myself over the railing and tackle him on the landing. Twisting his wrist backward as we tumble the rest of the way down the stairs, I jam the knife into the wall before either of us get cut by it. He growls inhumanly and pins me to the floor when we hit the bottom of the stairs. I don't make a sound, I don't fight back. He's fight some enemy that he expects to fight back, so I can't fight back.

My rationalization proves true when he lets me go, staring at me with eyes almost completely black. He rocks back on his heels, getting to his feet and staring at the front door. When the thunder cracks again, he says a single word that sends chills down my spine. "Katniss."

He's out the door before I can get to my feet, even if he is limping oddly. But I chase him into the rain as he runs toward her house.

"Haymitch!" I scream as loud as I can. "Haymitch!"

The door opens and I see Haymitch silhouetted just as it happens.

Lightning cracks in the dark sky and I see it reflected in the puddle of water I'm standing in.

All I know after that is terror.

The terror knocks me off my feet and increases so much when a part of my brain registers that I'm in water and there is electricity in the air.

Someone picks me up and I don't care who it is. I don't care what they do to me. I just want to not be where I am and I can't move on my own.

I'm terrified.


	14. Chapter XIV

**Don't own it.**

_You are all lovely, especially you _luvfaithdream _and _Sally97 _who left me such sweet, thoughtful, kind reviews for the last chapter! xoxoxo_

* * *

**LEARNING TO LIVE AGAIN**

Chapter XIV

_Please don't hurt me, please don't hurt me, please don't hurt me, please don't hurt me_.

The mantra is on constant repeat in my head.

"I'm not going to hurt you, I'm not going to hurt you."

Maybe it isn't in my head, maybe I said it out loud.

I open my eyes for the first time in I don't know how long and try to focus on something. All I can see is tan fabric. My face is pressed against tan fabric. My hands hurt, that's the next thing my mind registers. Without moving my head, I look out of the corner of my eye because I think I'll be able to see my hands. I can, my right one at least. It's clenched so tightly around tan fabric that my knuckles seem bruised. I could unfold my fingers, maybe, but I don't really want to. The person under the tan fabric doesn't seem like a threat. He's not wearing white, so he isn't a Peacekeeper.

"I'm not going to hurt you."

Am I still saying it out loud?

"You can stay where you are," the voice says with a deep, calm softness that makes me feel safe, "and I promise I am not going to hurt you. No one is going to hurt you, Johanna."

His arms are around me and they make me feel safe too.

I open my mouth to speak but no sound comes out other than a strangled scratching noise. I swallow hard, painfully, and try again. "Gale?"

"I'm right here," he tells me. "You're okay."

My face is still pressed into his shirt and I don't want to move, so I don't. "Water," I say with a whimper, remembering only bits of how I ended up where I am. "Electricity."

"Yeah, there was a thunderstorm," he tells me, speaking with his lips pressed against the top of my head. "Peeta lost it and you tried to stop him. You were in a puddle when lightning struck nearby. You weren't electrocuted, Johanna, you were just scared."

"Terrified," I correct him, giving in and crying openly against his chest.

"Terrified," he repeats gently. "It's over now. The storm has passed and you're okay."

"Is she back with us?"

I jump at the new voice, but relax when I realize it's only Hazelle. She's beside me, with her hand on my back and worry in his eyes. "Do you want to sip some tea, Johanna?" she asks. "It will help your throat."

I nod and let her hold the cup to my lips, still not letting go of Gale's shirt. "Why is my throat sore?" I really want to know the answer because I don't have any idea at all.

"You were screaming and crying," she explains, giving me a little more tea. "It's alright."

I chew my bottom lip and start the process of being brave enough to let go of Gale. "How long?"

"A few hours," Gale tells me gently. "It's almost dawn."

I can't say anything, or wallow in any self-pity, before Hazelle speaks again. "Do you trust me, Johanna?"

I'm not sure which Johanna answers, but the word comes out of my mouth. "Yes."

She nods solemnly and lifts a deep bowl of water off the floor.

I recoil immediately, but Gale's arms stop me from going anywhere. "Trust me, Johanna," he tells me in that original calm voice. "Trust me, and trust my mother."

"You need to confront the fear before it takes root in you again," Hazelle tells me as she pulls a sock off my foot. "If you don't confront it now, it will be so much harder in a week, in a day, in an hour."

Deep down, I know she's probably right. I don't want her to be right, but I think she is. I nod and relax the muscles in my leg.

She lifts the bowl up until my foot is in the water.

The worst doesn't happen. Volts of electricity don't run through my body. Instead, the warmth of the water makes me relax. I relax so much that I start sobbing against Gale's tan shirt.

When I wake up again, because I somehow managed to fall asleep, I'm lying on Gale's chest. As I look around, I realize I'm in his mother's living room. Gale seems to be asleep, but I can hear Hazelle moving in the kitchen. Moving ever so carefully so I don't wake him up, I unfold my aching, tense limbs and slide off him and to my feet.

Hazelle doesn't seem surprised to see me when I get to the kitchen. "Can I get you anything, Johanna?"

I like that she seems as calm as Gale is, even though I just had a mental breakdown. Most people run away from victors who lose their minds. "Water," I say more warily than she spoke to me. "A glass of water?"

She fills a glass and hands it to me. I put it on the counter. And then I stick my fingers in it.

Hazelle smiles then, and pours me a cup of tea. "Sit down, Johanna," she says, letting me work through my bold move on my own. "I'll make you something to eat."

"It's the middle of the day, isn't it?" I ask as I do as I'm told. When she nods, I groan softly. "Did I scare your kids? Are they here?"

"They didn't see anything." She answers as she stirs something in a pot on the stove. "After Gale brought you here, I sent them to Katniss. They're still there."

"Is she okay?" I ask, remembering my fight with Peeta.

"She didn't see anything either," Hazelle assures me as she puts a bowl of steaming oatmeal in front of me. "Haymitch stopped Peeta before he even got in the house; he's still with Peeta. Rory knows what happened and I told him to tell Katniss everything."

The food tastes so good as it burns my mouth a little but I don't care, I'm so hungry. "Peeta's okay?" I say around a mouthful of food. "He was limping. I think."

"I'm honestly not sure, but I am sure Haymitch has everything under control." She looks up as Gale comes into the kitchen and then quickly sets about pouring another cup of tea and filling another bowl of oatmeal.

He sits beside me and leans forward with one elbow on the table. "Are you okay?"

In answer, I stick my fingers in the glass of water again and force myself to smile.

"All about confronting the fear, are you?" he asks with a more honest smile. "Eating and drinking too? See, I told you that you'd be okay."

"I hear you were carrying me around, did you ruin your stitches?" It's nice that old, snarky Johanna makes a reappearance and from the flash of relief in his gray eyes, it seems like Gale thinks so too.

"Don't think so, but I haven't looked yet. There's no blood, and it doesn't hurt too much." He pauses to eat two spoonfuls of his breakfast and then adds one more thing. "I can ask Katniss to check the stitches later, unless you know how."

I shiver involuntarily at the idea of putting stitches in someone. "Nope. Better ask Katniss. I can clean and bandage things but sticking a needle through someone's skin, that would be a no."

We finish our breakfast, or lunch, in silence under Hazelle's watchful eye. Gale decides it would be best to have Katniss look at the stitches right away, but tells me that he'll help me take a bath afterward, if I want.

I do. And I don't.

So I tell him I'll come along to check on Peeta and Katniss, then we can try a bath.

Hazelle gives me a hug before we leave and tells me she's proud of me. I pretend like I've got something in my eye, and that I'm not crying, and tell her we'll send the kids back.

I take the glass of water with me too.

"Just so you know," Gale says as we walk across the road, "you have bruises on your face and hands from your fight with Peeta." When I grunt in acknowledgment of the inevitably of that, he asks a question that's apparently been bugging him. "Not that I'm questioning your ability, but you did you manage to slow him down all by yourself during the middle of the night?"

"The stairs helped; it was sort of like fighting as you roll down a mountain and dodge trees at the same time," I admit, "and I think I threw him off when I bent his wrist the wrong way so I could jam his knife into the wall."

He stops walking at the edge of Katniss' yard and looks at me. "That thing you said about fighting on a mountain, was that from your Games? I don't really remember tree covered mountains from your Games?"

"That's because there weren't any. Fighting on mountains and dodging trees while you're at it is strictly a District 7 thing," I declare proudly, grinning more when he laughs and nods in understanding. "Come on, Hawthorne, let's go get your shoulder looked at."

Rory sees us coming and herds his brother and sister across the street after stopping just long enough to ask if we were both okay – Gale tells him we are and Rory tells us that Peeta and Haymitch are in the kitchen with Katniss.

More specifically, Katniss is binding Peeta's wrist with a bandage and a splint.

They both look up when I groan loudly.

"Now, now, Johanna," Haymitch, sporting a black and swollen eye, cautions me, "we're all a little worse for wear after last night but we're all still standing."

I can't think of a snappy retort so I walk over to Peeta. "Did I do that or did you do it when you hit Haymitch?"

"Both. Maybe?" he guesses, wincing a little as Katniss finishes up.

"Is it broken?" I ask Katniss, letting my voice trail off when I see a newly forming bruise on her chin. "What happened to you? Hazelle said you didn't see anything and just watched the kids."

"I have no idea if it's broken or not," she replies, looking at my bruises just as intently. "I figured the splint would be the safest bet. I didn't see anything and I was watching the kids. Posy fell asleep on me then had a nightmare and punched me."

"That's rich, isn't it?" Haymitch chuckles. "Hunger Games victor and Mockingjay – marred by the fist of a five year old girl."

Katniss scowls at him and unscrews a jar of something I don't recognize. "Just for that, you're last on the list of people to get the salve for bruises and swelling."

He shrugs and takes a drink from his flask. "Alcohol makes it all better, sweetheart."

I take the jar from her and apply the salve to the bruises I see in a mirror she gives me. "Can you look at the stitches in Gale's shoulder? He was carrying me around and he might have messed them up."

To his credit, Gale doesn't say anything about my being too squeamish to do it myself. Then again, maybe he's just too worried about being so close to Katniss.

She declares his stitches fine, and decides after some hesitation that she'll be able to take them out in a few days, then cleans and rewraps his shoulder. "You don't need the sling unless you want to use it, but don't carry Johanna around anymore unless it's an emergency."

He nods and thanks her; she blushes a little and turns back to Peeta.

"I'm kind of surprised you're here," I admit to him.

"Face your fears head on, that's what Dr. Aurelius told me to do when things happen."

"See that, Hawthorne, I don't need a head doctor," I say as I watch him put his shirt back on, "your mother is just fine and I like her more. Also, why are you putting your shirt on, I thought we were going to take a bath? Are you just going to make me help take it off again?"

He left it unbuttoned and stuck his tongue out at me while everyone else in the room exchanged looks of embarrassment, smugness, and confusion.

"Before you go … take a bath … with Gale," Peeta stammers – he's the embarrassed one, "can I talk to you alone for minute, Johanna?"

I follow him outside, leaving Gale to be awkward with Katniss and Haymitch.

"Thank you, for stopping me," Peeta says once we're standing near the flock of geese that are making a huge racket. "I'm sorry you got hurt, but I'm glad you were willing to try and stop me."

"I'm sorry you got hurt too, but I'm glad I at least slowed you down," I tell him. I point toward his leg and look him in the eye. "Why are you still limping? That's your artificial leg, right?"

"Yeah, but I don't know if it's limping if it's more of a case of your artificial leg being a little broken. Nothing hurts, though, I promise." When I start to worry, he holds up his hand. "Katniss already called Effie Trinkett so another one will be on the next train from the Capitol. I'm just not going without until then."

I nod in understanding but can't think of what else to say.

"Are you okay, Johanna? I heard you scream when the lightning hit." Peeta drops his eyes to the ground and puts his hand on a post around the geese. "You wouldn't have been outside if it hadn't been for me. I'm sorry."

"Shut up, Mellark," I snap, eagerly embracing old Johanna. "Life would really suck if I can't ever be in a thunderstorm. I burned down part of my house the last time. This time, I just freaked. Maybe next time I'll just cower under a blanket."

"Progress is progress, right? I don't think I really wanted to kill Katniss last night," he says thoughtfully. "I think I was meaning to protect her from a mutt or something that was threatening her. I'm still glad you stopped me because I'm not sure, but that's what I think."

"Peeta, relax, we're good," I reassure him. "We're both getting better. Frankly, it might be boring to be totally better. But we'll get there."

He nods in agreement and looks back toward the house. "You'd better go, Gale's waiting."

"She's waiting for you too," I remind him as I turn to go.

I'm halfway to the house when he calls my name again. I turn and face him, wondering what else it could be.

"I know you said you're not sure where you're going or where you belong," he says slowly, still leaning on the post, "but I hope you'll stay here for a while. I missed you."

Any remnants of old Johanna flee the coop again and I blink back tears, turning to the side so he can't see them. "I missed you too, Peeta," I mumble before fleeing back inside, past Katniss and Haymitch, and into Gale's arms.


	15. Chapter XV

**I don't own this.**

_There will be twenty-two chapters of this story. It's all written. So expect quicker updates! YAY!_

* * *

**LEARNING TO LIVE AGAIN**

Chapter XV

I fall into a pattern over the next few weeks. And it's not even hard. In fact, it's easier. It's made especially easy when an empty building that was damaged by the firebombing collapses and I stop the clean-up crew before they set it all on fire. A lot of the wood can be salvaged if the damaged parts are shaved off. The people of District 12 are thrilled to find this out and I'm quickly in demand to weigh in on all wood related questions. In no time, I find myself on the skeleton roof of a building that will be a new bakery – something that it's hard to tell if Peeta or the district need more.

"You look good up there, Mason," a voice calls from the ground. "Like you belong."

I grin down at Gale and wave my hammer at him. "Wood does not a tree make. Well, it does, but you know what I mean," I reply, shaking my head at my own mixed up logic.

"You'd rather be up a tree than up on wood." He holds up a thermos and points at it. "Come down and I'll share my hot cider with you."

With my arms out for balance, I hurry along a two-by-four and scramble down the ladder. Hot cider sounds like just the thing to get the feeling back in my frozen fingers. Fall is definitely coming to District 12 and everyone, myself included, are in a hurry to make sure the first winter since the end of Snow's regime are as good and bearable as possible. "Where did you get hot cider?" I ask, taking the cup from him and wrapping my fingers around it.

"My mother made some over by the Justice Building for anyone who wants it."

I raise my eyebrow and eye him critically. "She told you to bring some to me, didn't she?"

"Absolutely not," he insists. "I thought of it on my own. You believe me, I know you do."

I bump my shoulder against him, and he wraps his arm around my shoulder to keep me there. "Fine. I believe you. Were you at the mines today or the site of the medicine factory?"

"Both." He looks sort of grumpy as he answers and I soon find out why. "Haymitch was apparently appointed as a coordinator of necessities for District 12 shortly before we got here. Now that I'm here, he excitedly reminded Paylor's government that I'm still technically available for work so now I get to do it. Long story short, I've been everywhere this morning and I'm having lunch with you."

"As long as you don't have to go to the Capitol, it's probably for the best. Think about it, Hawthorne," I point out, sipping the delicious hot cider, "if the needs of this district were in Haymitch's hands alone, this district could very easily be screwed. Again."

Gale links his arm through mine and leads me away from the bakery. "I would never have pegged you for the optimistic one, but you do make a good point. Do you want to go home for lunch or go see what Greasy Sae has in her stew pot?"

The word home still does strange things to me. As best as I can figure, I have found a home – in the Victor's Village. I stay at Katniss' house most of the time – she's taken to staying with Peeta a lot anyway, with Peeta sometimes, with Haymitch occasionally, and at the Hawthorne's when Posy falls asleep on me or I fall asleep in her bed with her. I like where my home is, even if it's ever-changing at the moment.

"Greasy Sae," I decide. "That way I won't have to walk all the way back here in an hour."

So we sit on a sawhorse in the square and eat bowls of acorn and rabbit stew that Greasy Sae happily gave us with only the request that Gale bring her some game soon. He agreed and we moved away so that others could get their stew.

"What do you say, Mason, want to hunt with me tomorrow?" he asks as he blows on a spoon of stew. "You said you wanted to see more of the woods and I haven't taken you yet."

I do, but I don't want to seem too eager. "You don't have to work?"

"Everybody's taking days off regularly," he points out. "Besides, we wouldn't be hunting just for Greasy Sae. We'll get as much as we can and it can be smoked and kept for winter. It'd be work."

I don't like the rabbit meat in my stew much so I spoon what I have into his bowl and scoop his acorns into my bowl. "Okay, I'm in. Just you and me?" I ask, trying not to be too obvious.

"Did you want someone else to come?" he asks quietly.

I shake my head and stuff my mouth with stew. "Dawn?" I mumble sheepishly.

"Mm-hmm," he hums, staring straight ahead. "I'll sleep at Haymitch or Peeta's tonight so I don't wake the kids up in the morning."

I don't say it, but I'll sleep wherever he sleeps – and I kind of hope it's at Haymitch's so that Katniss doesn't find out decide to come with us.

We split up when our bowls are empty, each of us going back to work.

At the end of the day, when I'm starving, I stop at the train station to collect any mail for myself and the people I randomly live with. Katniss got a letter that I'd bet is from one of her prep people, given the handwriting and ink color, and Haymitch has an official envelope from Plutarch. I have the best mail – a letter, and a package, from Annie. I rip it open and read it as I walk, tucking the picture of my adorable godson safely in the inner pocket of my coat.

_Johanna~_

_Nurse Everdeen says that Jack is almost ready to travel. He's healthy, but she thinks he should be a little bigger before we go, especially since winter is coming. She's not coming with us, I don't think – but I'll try to convince her. She's been helping me a lot. But anyway, we're coming before winter. _

_If you still want us to come. I hope you're still in District 12._

_I talked to Haymitch and he didn't say anything about the godparent idea so you must not have said anything to him – thank you._

_Another thing from centuries ago that I read about is Christmas. I've enclosed a book about it. It seems like a good thing, doesn't it? Maybe we could celebrate it when I'm there._

_Anyway, see you soon. And be good to Gale._

_~Annie_

I tuck the letter into the back of the book and flip through it as I walk up the steps to Katniss' house, because I smell freshly baked bread and something else. "Dinner here tonight?" I call out. It's not imposing because Katniss and Peeta aren't working in town yet so they always make supper, so it's only fair that I assume they made my dinner.

"Don't get mud on the floor!" Posy squeaks, appearing suddenly at my side. "I just cleaned it, Johanna."

I sit down on the stool by the front door and pull my muddy boots off – Posy snatches them and puts them outside on the porch. "Sorry. Why did you clean the floor at Katniss' house?"

"I was being helpful," she tells me proudly. "Guess what!"

"What?" I ask gamely as she steps back outside long enough to brush the mostly invisible – to me anyway – dust off my coat before bringing it back in.

"Us little kids get to start going to school when the new year starts. Only the bigger kids were going before because that's all there was room for and there wasn't a teacher. Now there will be. Isn't that exciting?"

It's almost hard to listen to her explanation because she's bouncing around in front of me so quickly, but I nod in agreement. "Very exciting," I agree. "Then you won't have to hang around here cleaning floors."

She nods and darts off to the kitchen, calling over her shoulder that dinner would be ready in a few minutes. I'm honestly a little jealous of her. I hated school when I had to go, but she's going to learn things besides statistics about coal production and usage and the Hunger Games. I shake the thought from my head as Gale and his brothers arrive, and get yelled at by Posy to leave their shoes on the porch. It's time to eat, that's what's important in the moment.

Gale and I catch Haymitch when he leaves for the night and ask if we can sleep at his house so we can hunt without waking anyone up. If Gale's surprised to see me at his side when he goes to ask, he doesn't say so. Haymitch tells us to sleep wherever we want. "And don't forget that I stay awake most nights and sleep in the mornings, so I'll hear things if they happen," he adds, winking more at me than at Gale.

For maybe just the third time in my life, I am completely lost for words. Lacking them, I splutter for second and then shove him out of my way before marching straight into his house.

I can hear him laughing behind me so I not so accidentally knock a half full bottle of liquor over.

Gale finds me in one of the spare bedrooms his mother cleaned. "Have a nice tantrum, did you?" he asks, his laughter barely contained. "I have to admit, you really told him off."

"I'm taking my axes tomorrow, you know," I remind him, still relishing the fact that I've acquired two new axes since coming to District 12, "and hunting accidents aren't unheard of."

"I'm not scared of you, Johanna Mason." As if to prove his point, he toes off his boots and flops onto the right side of the huge bed – Haymitch apparently opts out of the master bedroom and sent us to it. Before I can counter his argument, and all my comebacks sound lame even to me, he motions me to come close and, against my better judgment, I do. "I can't believe I'm asking this, but do you want to mess with Haymitch tonight?" he whispers. "You know, get him back for the innuendo better than your tantrum that wasn't?"

"I like the way you think, Gale Hawthorne," I reply, hopping up onto the bed next to him. "You're not a virgin, right? You do know how to fake this? It has to be convincing."

He tries, and fails, to push me off the bed. "I'm not a virgin, Mason. Even if I was, I doubt that fooling the ever drunk Haymitch Abernathy would be that hard." He looks at me abruptly, eyebrow raised. "Are you a virgin? Can you fake this? Make it convincing and all that?"

"No, yes, and yes," I answer shortly. "Now shut up and get ready or he's going to think we fell asleep."

And so we set about getting Haymitch back for guessing things that aren't happening, even if I'm fairly certain I want them too.

Gale is surprisingly good at making all the appropriate noises, making the bed squeak, and thumping the headboard against the wall at all the appropriate times. I make all the noise at the end, rocking back and forth on my knees as I scream, in a way that Haymitch will figure was me trying to not scream, through my fake climax.

A second later, a door slams somewhere in the house. "Thank god I'm too drunk to remember this in the morning," Haymitch shouts irritably, "but I'm still not leaving."

I flop onto my stomach and muffle my snicker in the pillow.

I fall asleep like that and wake with a start before dawn when I'm dreaming about the way a boy from District 9 tried to kill me during my Games. I poke Gale three times until he wakes up. "You ready to go? I'm done sleeping."

He's up and ready in a matter of minutes and we slip out of the house as quietly as we could, right past the snoring Haymitch.

Gale grabs a bag from the kitchen table and slings it over his shoulder with what he's already explained is his game bag. Katniss had found out we were hunting and leant me her game bag. I gathered it was a prized possession and I was touched that she would lend it to me. That's why I let Gale be the chivalrous man he wanted to be and carry two bags – so I can just carry Katniss'.

We walk quickly, if for no other reason than to warm up, until we're well outside of the furthest edges of the town. Only then does Gale even start to relax. The further we go, the more relaxed he gets. That's strange in itself because it's easy to see that he's coiled and ready to spring at any animal that passes by.

He bags three wild turkeys before he hooks his bow over his shoulders and gestures for me to walk beside him inside of a few feet behind as I was. "Bigger stuff is a little further out, so we can just walk and talk for a while. Or you can randomly chop at things," he adds as I chop at a gnarled old tree.

"Not random, Hawthorne," I retort, "I'm actually checking to see if the wood is still dry and salvageable even if the tree is mostly dead."

"What would you do with the wood if it is?" he asks, seeming actually curious as he leans against the tree and watches me. "Is it good for carving?"

I sniff the wood I chipped off and then break it in half – it's perfect. "Very good for carving," I declare. "Am I allowed to chop it down?"

He looks incredulous. "Now?"

I roll my eyes and shake my head. "No, not now. I'll come back for it. I need a bigger ax. I meant like can I mark it, remember where it is, and come back later to get it?"

"Sure, why not?" he says with a shrug.

I use my mid-size ax to mark the tree and follow him onward. "Where are we going?"

"I want to show you something," he explains, walking more quickly and actually looking excited.

We finally make it through some think underbrush and when I step out into the open, my breath is literally taken away by the beauty of the valley below us.

I know Gale's watching me, but I don't care – I just stare straight ahead. "I want to live here forever," I say, giving voice to my thoughts before I can stop myself.

"Me too," he whispers.


	16. Chapter XVI

**I don't own this.**

_I adore everyone reading this and anyone who reviews earns the next step up from adoration! xoxo_

* * *

**LEARNING TO LIVE AGAIN**

Chapter XVI

We take a break from hunting to eat the lunch Gale packed for us. I feel like I should have contributed something more to it, but he assures me that he doesn't mind. Instead, he lets me pick the spot where we eat, and I pick an open space in the grass where the sun will keep us warm and I can as much of the valley and the tree covered hills on the other side as possible.

"You can sit down," Gale says, already sitting cross-legged on a blanket he produced from his bag, "or keep standing there but I promise the view is just as good from down here."

I fold myself into position beside him and reach into the bag he's set on the blanket. "Did Peeta give you this bread or did you steal it?" I ask as I pull out a loaf of light, fluffy bread.

"He gave it to my mother and, as wrong as this sounds to admit, she packed the lunch for us." He immediately drops his eyes and fishes around in the bag.

I watch as he produces blackberries, apples, and a thermos. "I don't mind that your mother packed lunch for us," I assure him. "In fact, I feel less guilty about not having thought of it. What's in the thermos?"

He unscrews the cap and sniffs. "Tea. Do you want me to build a fire to keep warm or cook one of the squirrels I got?"

Given the fact that he didn't build a fire before he sat down, I guess that he'd rather not. It's the chivalry thing coming back. And to be honest, I'd rather he not as well. "No fire," I decide, breaking the loaf of bread in half. "It would mess up the aura of the place."

Gale's resulting grin tells me that I've given voice to his thoughts exactly.

So we sit back and eat our lunch. We eat without talking much, but we steal a lot of glances at each other. When the food is gone and the tea is drunk, I lie down on my back on the blanket. "We can relax for a few minutes more, can't we?" I ask.

In answer, he lies down beside me. "What should we talk about, Mason? Hard stuff or easy stuff?"

"Hard stuff? Here?" I scoff, waving my hand out over the world around us. "That would totally ruin the aura of the place, don't you think, Hawthorne?"

"Just trying to be a gentleman and let you decide," he laughs.

"Well, knock it off. Think of me as your gir–" I catch myself before I finish the word and struggle to find something else. My struggle ends in complete failure.

"What was that?" he asks, irritating me with the smirk I know he's sporting even if I am staring up at a cloud shaped like a turtle. "I didn't catch the end of that."

I roll my eyes and don't answer.

Gale turns to lie on his side and eyes me speculatively. "Were you going to say girlfriend?" he asks seriously.

I shrug, a complicated task when one is lying down. "I suppose. But it doesn't even make any sense because you'd be even more annoyingly chivalrous with a girlfriend. So please, for both our sanities, just ignore me."

Of course it's too much to ask.

He props himself up on his elbow and looks down at me. "Do you want to … date me?"

I feel like I've been punched in the chest, but in a good way. Which is really weird. Looking up at him, his face dark because of the sun behind it, I do the very last thing I ever expected myself to do. I tell him that I do.

"Alright then," he agrees easily, lying back down on his back.

"So we're dating?" I ask warily, not quite sure what seems to have just happened could actually have happened like it did. I turn to look at him just in time to see him nod. "Yep."

I mimic his position and share a secretive smile with the blue sky. "Okay."

Within minutes, we both do the most unromantic thing possible – we fall asleep. I wake up sprawled across him. I can tell by the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest that he's still asleep so I stay quiet and watch a half dozen birds hop around in the grass. They're strangely mesmerizing, at least for the twenty minutes until Gale wakes up on his own. "We're dating?" he asks when I look up at him, still on top of him.

"We're dating," I confirm, and I'm sure I'm grinning stupidly. That thought doesn't bother me so much when his lips meet mine. Whether it's from the built-up sexual tension of so many baths together – I'm still drawing those out as much as I can – or just because he's a man and I'm a woman and neither of us have satisfied our needs in a very long time, I don't know. What I do know is that it doesn't take long for him to find his way underneath my shirt and into my pants. I'm just as fast to shed them and pull his off, leaving our shirts on because it is still cold.

When my body feels happily like rubber and Gale's moved from where he had been above me, I curl into his side. "We're dating," I repeat once again, suddenly determined that there be meaning to what we just did.

"I'm falling love with you, Johanna," he murmurs, apparently even more determined than I am. "Is that okay?"

"Mm-hmm," I hum against his chest. "Very okay, Gale. I'm falling in love with you too."

"Good. I'd hate for this to be one-sided." He sits up and gently redresses me before attending to himself. "You're not lying, are you? This isn't one-sided?"

I get to my feet and reach out to grab his hand. "No, Gale," I tell him solemnly, "definitely not one-sided. I tried not to, but I lost. Or won, that's the way it is. I won and I'm falling in love with you."

"I believe you," he says, squeezing my hand. "Should we get going?"

I like this, this moment of pure selfishness followed immediately by getting back to business. No doubt it's part of why I'm falling in love with him. I follow him back into the trees where he shoots a half dozen more animals before we find ourselves next to a quietly flowing stream. We're lower down than we had been when we declared our love for each other, but the view is just as breathtaking. When I turn around and see the crumbling stone foundations of what was once someone's home, I get hesitantly excited about the idea that suddenly pops into my head. "How far are we from town?" I ask quickly. "From your mother's house in the Village?"

"A half hour walk, give or take," he replies, looking at me quizzically. "Up that embankment and through the woods, anyway. That's the shortest route, even if it's a little precarious at times. Why?"

I shrug my shoulders and keep my thoughts to myself for the moment. "Just wondering."

"Were you ready to head back? I'll show you the way and I won't even make you actually tell me why you asked," he offers, letting me have my secret.

"Did you get enough game?"

"For today, yeah, and we should get the earliest stuff back before it spoils," he explains.

"Alright then, home we go," I agree. And I soon learn that he wasn't kidding when he said the route was a little precious at times. I have to catch myself twice on fallen trees as we climb but, once we're in the woods, it's simply a matter of not getting lost among all the similar looking trees. Coming from District 7, all I need to do is look at the way the trees lean slightly away from civilization, and toward the open spaces beyond, to know I'm going in the right direction. Soon enough, I can smell all the smells of people going about the task of living.

Greasy Sae is very happy with what Gale brings her, promising him the choicest bits of whatever she makes from the animals spread across her table. He bargains her into giving him the pink mittens she accidentally knitted too small for her granddaughter instead and tells her to give the meat to those who need it the most. The mittens, without a doubt, are meant for his sister.

When we get back to the Victor's Village, it's clear that we've missed next to nothing. I can smell fresh baked bread and Katniss is busy carving new arrows for the bow that Haymitch has apparently decided she can have whenever she wants – and I'm glad for that. We don't have a group meal for reasons that no one mentions.

But I eat supper with Gale's family. I can't help but squirm every time Hazelle looks at me; it's like she knows what we did in the woods. It doesn't help that Gale snickers every time I squirm. Luckily, Vick and Posy seem to remain clueless about everything but Rory, whether he has any idea what's going on or not, starts laughing the longer it goes on.

"What did you think of the woods?" Hazelle asks innocently enough.

My face instantly feels like it's on fire and Gale sounds like he's choking while Rory laughs so hard that he knocks his water glass over. Vick and Posy just look confused.

"They were lovely," I manage to say, shooting glares at my plate. "Almost like home, just without the fir trees. Have you been out there?"

"Just when the district was firebombed and I have to admit I didn't pay much attention to the scenery," she admitted, as if her oldest children aren't acting like idiots.

I nod, driving my elbow into Gale's ribs to make him stop, but keep my eyes on her. "You should go out before the snow starts. The views are breathtaking if you take the time to look at them. It does snow here, right?"

"Sometimes waist high drifts in one night," she tells me, nodding thoughtfully. "Maybe I will. We could all go out to the lake we stayed by until District 13 came, don't you think, Gale? Make a day of it."

"Sure, of course," he agrees, nodding as he composes himself and elbowing Rory to do the same. "Katniss and Peeta and Haymitch too?"

"We have to invite them at least," Posy declares, bouncing in her chair as she got warmed up to the idea. "I'll do it, okay, Mommy?"

Hazelle agrees, but reminds Posy to finish her dinner and ask them in the morning instead of bothering them again tonight.

As the meal goes on, I realize that I don't even mind the laughter and teasing because it's family. It feels good to squirm and be embarrassed by people who truly have your best interests at heart. It's very weird, but very good.

"Johanna?" Hazelle asks, bringing me back out of my daydream. "Have you heard from Annie?"

"Oh, yeah," I exclaim, mentally slapping myself for not having mentioned it to anyone. "She sent a letter the other day. She and the baby are doing really well and she's going to try and come here before the snow makes it impossible. She sent me a book about something they used to have called Christmas. She wants to celebrate it, I think."

"I heard of that!" Vick exclaims, startling us all because he's been so quiet. "People used to put up pine trees in their houses and put decorations on them. Then, on Christmas morning, some guy in a red suit would come and leave presents for people. Let's do it!"

"I think you're missing a few things there, buddy," I tell him, having read a tiny bit of the book. "But we can look into it if you all thing we should do it."

Posy's bouncing more than I really thought humanly possible. "I'll ask Katniss and Peeta and Haymitch about that tomorrow too," she promises us. "We should totally do it. Shouldn't we, Mommy?"

"We will at least look at the book Annie sent," Hazelle promises her.

And we do just that. Once Vick and I have washed the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen, because it's our turn, we all sit in the living room by the fireplace and Hazelle reads aloud from the book. Rory and Vick are sprawled on the carpet, Gale's sitting on the floor with his back against the stone face of the fireplace, and I sit with Hazelle on the sofa – Posy's on my lap so she can see the pictures in the book without being in the way.

By the end of our study, the Hawthornes and I have decided that we will celebrate this thing called Christmas and we will spread the word over as much of District 12 that will listen to us. I've got a sneaking suspicion that the people will embrace it wholeheartedly.

Gale and I end up the last ones in the house awake.

"Are you sleeping somewhere else tonight?" he asks me quietly.

"No, I don't want to wake anyone up," I say evasively, avoiding myself as much as I'm avoiding him. "I'll sleep here. The sofa is fine."

"She's knows we sleep together, Mason," he points out, sounding wary despite his nonchalance. "That's all we'd be doing here. Sleep with me?"

I take the hand he's offering and get to my feet. "You are comfy to sleep on," I allow playfully, "much better than the sofa. Alright, I'll sleep with you."

He laughs and leads me to his bedroom. Having had lots of practice, it doesn't take us long to arrange ourselves in pajamas, beneath the covers, and wrapped around each other. I fall asleep in his arms and I dream of nothing other than stone houses overlooking peaceful valleys and a family gathered around me.


	17. Chapter XVII

**Don't own it.**

* * *

**LEARNING TO LIVE AGAIN**

Chapter XVII

"Gale!" Vick shouts as I walk down the stairs, tugging at the skirt that feels all wrong against my legs. "Gale! Your girlfriend is dressed like a girl!"

I brush back the hem of my coat, making sure the kid sees the ax I've still got, and scowl at him as Gale steps out of the kitchen. "Get your own girlfriend, boy," he tells his little brother. "Hands off mine."

Vick holds up his hands and backs away, whether from my ax or his brother I don't know. "I got a girlfriend," he declares proudly.

"She just doesn't know it yet," Gale stage whispers to me as Vick grins and disappears into the kitchen. "You look very pretty, Mason. How come you'll dress up for Annie but not for me?"

Hazelle keeps the windows sparkling clean and I check my reflection, running my fingers through my hair, before I answer him. "I wore a dress to that first group dinner. Other than that, my boyfriend hasn't given me any other reason to dress like a girl. I haven't had sex with him indoors yet, you know. It's cold getting in the spots he likes so he'll just have to deal with my pants."

"Consider your boyfriend duly chastised," he says, bowing low before offering me his arm. "Although he would argue that his girlfriend likes to have sex outside as much as he does."

"Not in snow, Hawthorne," I warn him bluntly. "She will not have sex in snow. Know that. Tell him to find an indoor place or he won't be getting any until spring."

His mother clears her throat loudly before he can answer. "Please, Posy is here. And so am I. So go have sex or go pick up Annie or just change the subject. Please."

We both accuse the other one of being more at fault, and then choose her second option.

"Is it just us?" Gale asks as we step out into the blustery late fall day. "None of the other victors?"

I shake my head. "Brainless is worried about how she'll react if the first time she sees her mother is in public and Peeta won't leave her. Haymitch is staying with them because, well, he's Haymitch."

"He's probably worried Annie blames him for getting Finnick involved in the rebellion in the first place," he muses as we walk. "That reminds me, who did convince you, and Finnick, to join the rebellion?"

"Haymitch," I answer simply. "So you're probably right about his worrying. In any case, I would have jumped at anything to be part of ending the Hunger Games and Snow. It didn't take much to convince me.

"Finnick was a different story. He'd only been pimped out by Snow for a year or two before Annie won and he hadn't quite decided if it was all that bad. Mags had a stroke the year Annie was in the arena and Finnick had to mentor by himself. Naturally, he blamed himself for her mental breakdown.

"Then Snow told him that as soon as Annie got, you know, not so crazy, she was going to be pimped out just like him, Cashmere, and Gloss. Finnick wouldn't hear of it and traded himself for her."

"I thought he was already doing it," Gale interrupts me as we walk. "How could he trade himself for her?"

I cringe involuntarily at the answer before I give it. "He doubled what he was doing. Same-sex stuff too, because it was men that wanted Annie. Anyway, seeing what happened to Annie brought Finnick around and he decided that he might as well make what he was doing worth it."

"Gave the secrets he heard to the rebels?" he guesses, apparently having paid attention.

"Yep. And before you ask, he did really love her. Maybe not at first, but in time. It wasn't out of pity either. If you knew him like I knew him, you'd know that he was just as crazy as she was, is, whatever."

That's all we have time to discuss because we've arrived at the train station just as the train pulls in.

"Johanna!" Annie calls out, strangely brave in this new place as she steps off the train to greet me. She's got one hand protectively wrapped around the bundle that's in the sling around her chest, though, and I can tell she's nervous, even if she does seem mostly relieved. "You came. And wore a dress."

"Skirt," I correct her, hugging her around the bundle and peeking beneath the blanket at the baby. "And I promised I'd come, didn't I?"

She nods and releases me to hug Gale. "I didn't doubt you," she says quietly.

"How was the trip?" I ask to change the subject and make her feel more comfortable. "Did Katniss' mother come or did you come by yourself?"

"By myself," she says in a voice that sounds like maybe she can't quite believe she did it. "Nurse Everdeen is going to try and come in a few weeks. There are eight women very close to having babies and there's an outbreak of chicken pox and shingles. Will Katniss be terribly disappointed?"

"I don't think so," Gale answers. "I don't think she really expected her mother to come."

"She'll come," Annie tells him confidently. "She gave me a letter for Katniss anyway."

"Then let's get you and my godson out of the cold and go give it to her," I suggest, fighting the urge to swipe the baby right out of the sling and into my arms. "You and Jack can stay with Haymitch, at Katniss', or at Peeta's."

"Why didn't you say 'with' for Katniss and Peeta? And where do you stay?" she asks as we walk, eyeing the way Gale is walking close enough to bump against my arm without ever purposefully touching me.

I ignore her look and answer her questions, thereby not ignoring her look so much at all. "Katniss and Peeta stay with each other a lot of the time now. Mostly at Peeta's, so I suppose you could just take over Katniss' house if you wanted. And I stay at the Hawthorne's house." I say it very fast, hoping she'll be too distracted by worrying over her new environment to catch it.

"Must be crowded," she says, catching it – of course.

"We manage," Gale replies, smirking as he gives up bumping and just takes my hand. "Johanna and I are dating, Annie, she just hasn't worked up the nerve to say those particular words to anyone but me."

I let go of my hand long enough to elbow him in the ribs before I link my fingers through his again. "Yes," I confirm as she smiles happily, "we're dating. See? I can say it to people besides you, Hawthorne."

"Only because I called you out on it," he argues, but I ignore him and focus on Annie. "Why are you grinning like a cat that swallowed a canary?"

She giggles and shrugs, still keeping one hand on her silent baby. "I thought I'd have to keep playing matchmaker when I got here, but you did it all on your own. I'm happy for you, Johanna."

"Thank you," I say, probably failing at pretending to be bothered by the attention. So I settle for changing the subject. "I didn't say a word to Haymitch about the godfather thing, that's all you."

She doesn't really seem to hear me because Greasy Sae's granddaughter is running toward us. Annie doesn't see Gale wave the girl back, into her grandmother's arms, but I do. Keeping hold of Gale's hand, I link my other arm through Annie's and pull her close to me. "Let's hurry. I want to hold my godson," I tell her with a forced cheerfulness.

It only takes another two minutes to reach the Victor's Village and Haymitch is waiting in the road to meet us. Before I really know what's happening, Annie pulls the sling over her head and stuffs it, with the baby still in it, into my arms. Apparently, she very much wants to hug Haymitch because his arms are tightly wrapped around her before I can blink.

Gale and I leave them alone, retreating to the semi-shelter of Haymitch's porch. Peeta startles us both by opening the door. "You're holding the baby?" he asks in a dismayed voice that I'm not sure is a reaction to Johanna Mason holding a baby or simply that Annie wasn't. "Come inside, both of you. It's too cold out there for him."

He steps outside and makes us go in first, casting a wary eye at Haymitch and Annie.

I honestly don't have a clue what to do with a baby, so I'm more than a little relieved when Gale takes him from me and unwraps the sling from around him.

My godson is the most adorable little man I have ever seen. His tufts of dark bronze hair stick up adorably around his head and his deep green eyes are ridiculously easy to get lost in. I'd take him back from Gale if I wasn't so afraid of breaking him.

"He looks like his parents," Peeta says softly from beside me. "It's kind of eerie."

"See why she had to name him Jack?" I ask in a rueful whisper.

"He's not going to bite the two of you," Gale tells us, holding Jack so he can see us. "He's just a baby. Not a mutt or anything like that."

I shake my head, still a little amazed that I held him outside on such short notice. "Aside from carrying him here, I've held exactly one baby one time in my entire life, Hawthorne," I protest, moving to stand behind Peeta.

"Whose baby was that?" he asks, walking slowly towards us – maybe because Peeta isn't backing away. "Someone in District 7?"

I shake my head again. "No. It was Cecelia's kid, the victor from District 8 who was in the arena. She had her last kid in the Capitol while we were mentoring."

"And did you drop the baby?" he persists as Peeta makes soft cooing sounds that baby Jack seems to love. When I shake my head, once again, Gale smiles. "Then you can hold him after Peeta. I won't let you hurt him."

Peeta does hold the baby first, far braver than I am for some reason. Jack fusses a bit in his arms, and that makes me stupidly happy. If Peeta, who had seemed as scared as me, could be the perfect thing for the baby I would be annoyed. Peeta doesn't seem to care that Jack's fussing, though, and he just keeps making cooing sounds at him. Then again, maybe Jack isn't fussing, maybe he's responding.

Peeta hands Jack to me after a few minutes, and Gale comes to stand behind me. The noises my godson makes at me are definitely fussing now. I'm about to shove him into someone else's arms when Gale puts his hands on my shoulders. "Relax, Mason," he says in that occasionally irritating voice that makes me do just that. "He'll relax if you do."

Naturally for me, the next thing I do is hiccup. Jack gurgles a laugh as he tries to imitate me. So I make myself hiccup again, bringing peals of sweet laughter from my godson. It's not so hard after all.

Jack is still giggling and I'm still hiccupping when Haymitch brings Annie inside. When the little boy's intense green eyes find his mother, he lets out an impatient squeal and stretches his arms toward her. The panic that was clear in her eyes ebbs when she gathers her son to her chest.

"He's perfect, Annie," Peeta tells her with a quiet sort of reverence in his voice. "More perfect even than the pictures I've seen."

She murmurs her thanks and looks around the room as Haymitch slips back out the door. "He's going to tell Katniss that her mother didn't come," she explains shyly. "The baby needs changed, is there somewhere you think I could do it?"

Gale and I are totally useless at answering, but Peeta steps forward. "Haymitch cleaned up a bedroom in case you wanted to stay with him," he explains, gesturing toward the stairs as he picks up her bags. "I'll show you."

"I knew you wouldn't drop him," Gale whispers in my ear when we're alone. "Was it too terribly bad?"

I shake my head and lean back into his arms. "No, I suppose not. Should you go check on Katniss?" As I ask the question, old Johanna is easily squelched by new Johanna. Old Johanna wants to be upset by asking her boyfriend to go check on the girl he once loved, but new Johanna is clear-headed enough to see that Gale loves her and, even if she can't yet admit it, the girl Gale loved loves someone else.

He thinks for a minute before he answers. "I probably should. It's strange how easy it's been to fall back into looking out for her. We haven't talked about Prim at all," he admits hesitantly, "but that'll come in time, right?"

"Yep, it will," I assure him. "And it probably won't be easy, but it'll come. Maybe while Annie's here everybody will sit down and talk it out. Anyway, go on over and save Katniss from Haymitch. I'll stay here with Peeta and Annie."

He kissed me quickly and left.

I wasn't alone long before Peeta came down the stairs. "She decided she was tired so she's lying down with the baby," he explains in a quiet voice. He's looking at me strangely, and I try not to see him, or let him see me. "What's wrong, Johanna? Are you going to cry?"

The tears that drip down my cheeks make a liar out of me when I say that I'm not.

"Why are you crying?" he presses, and I'm strangely not mad at him for it. "Don't you want Annie and Jack to be here?"

"No, I do," I say, trying not to cry hard enough that he feels inclined to hug me or something. "It's not that. And it's not about Finnick either, before you ask."

He nods and stays thoughtfully quiet for a minute. "Okay, then. Do you want me to go get Gale?"

I shake my head so hard that tears fly off my cheeks. "No, don't! He's the last person I want to see me cry right now."

Adjusting the artificial leg he's still getting used to after it was sent to replace the one I helped break, he sits down on the floor and pulls me down beside him. "Then talk to me, Johanna. I won't tell anyone a thing that you say."

The different versions of Johanna war with each other briefly before I shamelessly spill my guts to him. "I shouldn't be in love with Gale." Unlike many other people would, he doesn't interrupt. He just waits for me to keep talking. "He's likes kids, he's good with them. He should have them. I can't. Not ever, it looks like. I haven't had a…" I let my silence say the words I can't say. "Not since… what they did to me. They took everything, Peeta, everything."

My words end with a whimper instead of the wail I thought for sure was building, and Peeta wraps his arms around me, holding me close. Better than anyone else, he knows why I'm crying.


	18. Chapter XVIII

**I don't own this.**

_It's coming to an end… how sad…_

* * *

**LEARNING TO LIVE AGAIN**

Chapter XVIII

It takes me a long time to realize that Annie is sitting on the landing of the stairs, watching me cry on Peeta with wide, understanding eyes. Maybe Peeta isn't the only one who can understand.

"I didn't know you wanted to have children," she says softly when she sees me notice her.

"Neither did I," I admit wetly. "Not until I realized that I love someone and I can't. That I can't because they electrocuted me and raped me because I didn't want children to die anymore."

"Gale knows what happened to you, and he loves you," she tells me with a quiet firmness in her voice. "He won't care. You should tell him."

"Tell him what?" I demand miserably. "Tell him that never once in my life did I want to be a mother, not until I realized I couldn't? Then I wanted it so badly that it physically hurts? Is that what I should tell him?"

She doesn't seem to care that I'm yelling at her for no good reason. She sits there and takes it, just like she did when I screamed at her in the Capitol about things that weren't her fault. She waits until I'm done, and then she speaks. "Yes," she says simply.

"Yes?" I repeat, laughing once, wetly. "Yes what?"

"Yes, that's what you should tell him," she elaborates, smiling patiently. "Don't you think so, Peeta?"

His arms are still around me but I feel him nod. "I do. Gale loves you, that's what will be important to him."

"Does he want to have kids?" I ask, turning a little as I pull away from him.

Peeta lets me go and shrugs. "I have no idea. What I do know is that he looks at you different than every other girl I've seen him interact with, even Katniss. He watched her like he was worried something would hurt her if he didn't take care of her. He watches you like he will be hurt if something happens to you, especially if it's because he doesn't take care of you."

"You're full of crap," I announce bluntly.

"Johanna!" Annie scolds me, standing and drifting cross the room to sit by us on the floor. "Be nice. Peeta and I are trying to help you."

I drop my eyes in shame. "I'm sorry," I tell Peeta as Annie squeezes my hand. "He's really different with me?"

"Mm-hmm," he hums softly. "He really is. He won't run away if you tell him what you just told us. We've all been through too much to do that, don't you think?"

A wry laugh escapes from my chest and I slouch against the wall. "Yeah, I would think so. Or hope so."

"I'm not much better off than you, you know," Peeta offers, hugging his whole leg to his chest. "Katniss never wanted to have children because of the Games, and she told me the other day that her mind hasn't changed. She's afraid of… checking out again, I guess."

"She'll change her mind," Annie and I say in perfect unison before I let her finish our apparently shared thought. "You'll be an amazing father one day, Peeta."

"I hope so," he says uncertainly.

"You will," I echo her, oddly not bothered by the idea of Peeta and Katniss getting to have a baby when I can't. Maybe it's proof that I'm just emotional over my own state and not jealous of Annie or Katniss or anyone else. It's a comforting thought, all things considered. "Give her time and then you'll both get through it together."

"Okay, Johanna," Annie says firmly, "enough trying to put the focus on someone else. Peeta's not crying and he knows it would not be good for him and Katniss to have a baby yet so we have to fix you. Remember?"

She's asking if I remember the vow the three of us made each other in the Capitol cells. I do. Whoever was the worst off, whoever was feeling the worst for whatever reason, that's who the other two focused on. That's who we didn't let change the subject. That's who we didn't let hide behind a mask of 'being okay.' Annie had come up with the vow, I think because she was never tortured. She didn't have anything to do other than to watch me and Peeta suffer, and she needed something to keep herself… sane. Logic said that joining her would keep us as sane as possible, so we both agreed. I'd hoped it was a lifetime promise.

"I remember," I promise her gratefully. "I have a theory about why I'm so upset about this."

Annie smiles and Peeta leans forward, both relieved I've fallen back into our old pattern. "What's that?" she asks as he nods in encouragement.

"Everyone that I've cared about, that I've cared about because I met them on my own – not that I met because of the Hunger Games, has abandoned me for one reason or another. My mother died giving birth to me. My father drank himself to death. My brother died. The few friends I had growing up barely spoke to me after I got reaped and came home. The one boyfriend I had, before the Games, called me a murderer when I got home and told me that I'd better just do what Snow wanted and whore myself out because no one could ever really love me.

"I can't help but wonder if maybe I'm not good enough to be loved. If I am, why do people leave me?" I'm crying again, but I know I'll get yelled at if I try to stop myself so I don't. "Will Gale leave me when he finds out that I can't have a baby? Am I stupid for even thinking, wanting, to be with him that long?"

"No," they answer in perfect unison before Annie lets Peeta speak. "Look who you're talking to, Johanna. I loved Katniss for eleven years before I worked up the nerve to tell her. If I hadn't been reaped, and she hadn't volunteered, I probably would never have told her. But we know how fleeting life is, so you have to tell Gale everything; that you probably can't have a baby, that you want to be with him that long, that you love him."

"And if he leaves because of any of that," Annie says, picking up their apparently shared train of thought, "Peeta and I will be here. And we're never leaving you, not even after we die."

Peeta nods in solemn agreement and I, being who I am, burst out laughing. It doesn't take them long to follow suit, as crazy as the three of us sound. "Thank you," I tell them, wiping at the wetness on my cheeks. "I needed to hear that. And to laugh."

"Of course you did," Annie agrees, smiling as she hugs me. "Now, let's go see if Jack's awake because I think Haymitch, Gale, and Katniss are coming."

Leaving Peeta to greet them, I hurry up the stairs with Annie. My godson is awake and flashes us a brilliant smile in greeting. His arms are reaching for Annie so she picks him up and cuddles him while I simply touch his cheek with one finger. His little fingers close around mine and that's how we have to go back downstairs – where the other three have indeed arrived.

Annie stiffens when Katniss promptly bursts into tears and Jack lets go of my finger to pat his mother's cheek. Peeta takes Katniss into the kitchen as Haymitch sighs heavily before walking over to us. "This is him, is it?" he says, maybe to distract Annie with a subject change.

"Who else would it be?" she replies, smiling at him just a little. I rub her back and she hands Jack over to Haymitch – he's surprisingly good at adapting to the baby in his arms. Annie's not done talking, though, and knowing what she's going to say, I get ready to catch Jack if Haymitch loses his grip. "Haymitch?" she says, right on cue. "Have you ever heard of godparents?"

He grunts in reply, a noise that Jack tries to imitate – he's much cuter at it than Haymitch. "It's where people had others ready to stand in as surrogate parents to their kid if something happened to them."

"Mm-hmm," Annie says, taking a deep breath before she dives in to the heart of the matter. "Haymitch? Will you be Jack's godfather?"

He laughs once, as if he's sure she has to be joking. But all he has to do is look at her to see that she isn't. In the blink of an eye, Katniss isn't the only one in the house crying. "Are you serious, Annie?" he asks in a voice not far above a whisper, something I've never heard him do.

"Very," she confirms, her eyes wet now. "Johanna's already agreed to be his godmother, but he needs a godfather. You're the only one I want."

Haymitch is opening and closing his mouth, not sure of how to react, so I help him. "Before you question the intelligence of her choosing us," I say, still ready to catch the baby if need be, "ask her why."

He does as he's told. "Why?"

The way I directed the conversation helps Annie too and she blinks back her tears for the most part. "Finnick told me that if I ever found myself without him or Mags, I should trust you with my life. So I'm trusting you with my son's life, if you'll have him. Us."

"Yes, Annie," he says slowly, clearly not sure if he should look at her or at the baby in his arms. "I'll have him. Both of you. Thank you."

She smiles in relief and hugs him and her son. "Thank you, Haymitch," she whispers softly.

"Katniss," Haymitch calls out, just loud enough for her to hear him but not loud enough to startle the baby, "come in here and meet my godson."

Phrasing it as his godson rather than Finnick's son must make a difference, or she's just too used to doing as he tells her, because she creeps out of the kitchen with her hand firmly clasped around Peeta's. She doesn't come far, though, so Haymitch walks to her – with Annie trailing behind and me following her, with Gale at my side. We probably look silly, but no one cares.

Over the next few hours, we all relax a little. Katniss never really warms up to Jack, I think because he reminds her too much of Finnick and she still blames herself for that. With Annie firmly sandwiched between Haymitch and Peeta on the sofa, holding the baby, and Gale having left to attend to some emergency in town, I poke Katniss in the shoulder. "Let's go for a walk and get some air, brainless."

She follows me without a word. Outside, standing in a spot of sun to stay warm, I do something I've rarely ever done, to anyone – I hug her. "Stop it, brainless," I tell her, keeping some of my old self happily intact. "Finnick knew what he was doing. It's not your fault. Annie doesn't blame you. She needs you. Jack needs you. Hell, Peeta and Haymitch need you. Be the Katniss that broke the law every day to keep her family alive. Be the Katniss that survived one Games and kept Peeta alive and be the Katniss that fully intended to die for him in the second Games.

"You know what, don't even be those Katniss'. Be a Katniss somewhere in the middle, somewhere between what you were then and what you are now. Don't even do it for Peeta or Haymitch, Annie, Jack, Gale, or me. Do it for you. You deserve it. Stop letting Snow win. He's dead."

Whether it's from shock of me hugging her, amazement that I said her name so many times, or that I said so much at once, she just stands there for a full minute and stares at me. "I want to dance," she finally declares, speaking slowly and totally confusing me, "on his grave."

Those three words make me grin involuntarily. "Then do it, brainless," I say, grabbing her hands and shaking her to wake her up. "What's stopping you?"

"Fear," she admits, her eyes almost bright like they were when she yelled at me in the arena for shoving Nuts.

"He's. Not. Here," I enunciate for her. "He never will be again. I know this lecture might sound like I'm just peachy, but I'm not. Ask Annie or Peeta what happened before you got here. Ask Gale about how I showed up at his door and asked him to take a bath with me because I hadn't since the Capitol. It does get better, never perfect, but better. I promise, brainless."

"I promise to try," she says with a little confidence.

"Good, now let's go look at the baby. He's looks like Finnick and that's hard, yes, but he'll never get reaped. Remember that when you look at him."

My pep talk apparently gets through to her, to my surprise, and when we go back inside she holds Jack. She still looks terrified of him, but things are much easier. I can only shrug when Haymitch raises an eyebrow at me.

Gale returns not too long after that, bringing his family with him. They've made a welcome dinner for Annie and it doesn't take long for all of us to arrange ourselves around Haymitch's little used dining room table. Even Annie is comfortable around Hazelle and her children.

But my keen sense of the world around me has me feeling like something's going on with Gale. He keeps looking at me strangely, and I know he wasn't been alone with either Peeta or Annie so it can't be anything to do with babies. Katniss and Peeta offer to clean up after dinner so I take the chance to go outside for another private conversation, this time with Gale.

"What gives?" I demand, wrapping the coat I stole from Haymitch tightly around myself. "Is there some news in town?"

He clear doesn't want to tell me whatever it is, so I stomp on his foot – which makes him markedly less inhibited. "Yes, there's news. President Paylor is coming in a few weeks."

"Here?" My voice sounds stupidly squeaky, and I repeat myself in a more normal voice. "Why?"

"The anniversary of the end of the war," he explains, making it sound so very much more simple than it surely is. "Paylor's going to make a statement from here to all of Panem. Beetee and Enobaria are coming with her."

It clicks quickly in my mind. "She wants all the living victors on stage with her?"

Gale nods reluctantly.

"Fine by me," I say with a shrug. "I'll talk to the others, you don't have to."

"Thanks." He catches my elbow before I can go back inside. "I wanted to talk to you too. Annie passed me a note and threatened to kill me if I ever left you. Any particular reason why?"


	19. Chapter XIX

**I don't own this.**

* * *

**LEARNING TO LIVE AGAIN**

Chapter XIX

"Do you love me, Johanna?" Gale asks once I've finished blurting out the meaning behind Annie's note.

It doesn't take any thought to answer. "Yes. I do."

He reaches out and wraps his warm arm around me to ward off the chill in the air. "Do you love me less because you can't have a baby?" When I say, honestly, that I don't he moves on to the next question. "If you really want to have a baby, if we really to have a baby, maybe there's a doctor in the Capitol who could do something to help."

I hadn't thought of that, but it's good point. I don't want to go back to the Capitol just yet, and certainly not to their doctors, but it is an option. We'd at least know for sure. "See," I tell him, curling my body around his, "that's why I love you. You listen to me flip out and then you calmly offer an alternative that I was too crazy to think of."

Gale shrugs and kisses my forehead. "What can I say? I love a woman who gets emotional, no matter what it's about. We'll be okay, Johanna, I promise."

I take a deep breath and nod. "Yeah, we will. One day at a time, right? And first we have to deal with this whole Christmas thing and Paylor coming."

"Exactly," he agrees. "Who are you going to tell first?"

I chew the inside of my lip and think about that for a minute. "Haymitch. He can help me tell the others. Or tell Katniss on his own," I add quickly. "He'll take it best, though."

My prediction is proven right when Haymitch reacts only by nodding in weary acceptance of the news an hour later. He'd expected something like that, and he was happy that Paylor was coming to use rather than expecting him to bring Katniss and Peeta to the Capitol. Annie takes the news almost more calmly than Haymitch did, asking only that he and I help make sure that Plutarch – who will undoubtedly tag along – not try to put Jack on television in any way. It something she doesn't have to ask me twice for.

Peeta and Katniss, however, are a different story. He clutches the back of a chair and his eyes turn black as we stand there helplessly. She goes to him, rubbing his back and whispering in his ear until he relaxes and his eyes go back to their normal blue color. That's when she crumbles, falling to her knees and sobbing into her hands as he kneels beside her and does what she did for him.

"Let's give them a minute," Haymitch suggests, leading the rest of us out of the room. When we're in the kitchen, he mashes the palms of his hands into his eyes. "I'll use Coin's assassination and her conviction to keep her out of it if I have to. I won't let her be made a pawn again."

"Good," Annie and Gale say in perfect unison.

Haymitch nods his thanks and sighs. "Johanna, Annie, neither of you have to do this if you don't want to. I'll get Paylor to make Plutarch back off if he pushes it. She'll understand."

"We can't all back out, and just have you and Beetee represent the victors," I argue, taking the pressure of Annie. "They need at least one young, pretty one. And Enobaria does not count. I'll do whatever Paylor wants. It's fine."

Annie fiddles nervously with the hem of her shirt. "Can I tell you if I need help later?"

"Sure, of course," he agrees without hesitation. "Anyway, once Katniss pulls herself together, let's focus on something else. Paylor's not due for a few weeks. We've got to have Christmas first. Gale, get that book from your mother's house so we can see what needs to be done."

Seeing what needs to be done leads to me and Katniss being sent to the woods the next morning to find a tree that we can cut down and decorate. It's Haymitch that tells us to go, probably because he thinks it will do Katniss good to be out in the open. Who am I to argue?

"Doesn't look like you got much sleep last night," I comment as we weave through a thick copse of trees.

"No, not too much," she agrees wryly. "Peeta and I took turns having nightmares and calming each other down. It was fun."

"The fun part should be that I saw your bare arms earlier, I can see your neck and face now, and there aren't any bruises," I point out. "That means nobody tried to kill anyone. Definitely a plus, if you ask me."

Katniss gives me a shove and laughs uncertainly. "You're much too optimistic lately, Johanna. Has anyone told you that?"

"Nope, just you, brainless," I tell her.

"It must be because you're in love," she shots back, doing her best, and very bad, imitation of a Capitol accent and drawing out the word love.

"Don't," I warn her.

"Johanna's in love, Johanna's in love," she counters in a silly sing-song voice.

I shove her that time. "Knock it off, brainless. You really do need more sleep. You're slap happy, or just plain gone crazy."

She steadies herself on a tree and keeps walking, leading me somewhere. "Maybe both. Anyway, I haven't told you before but I should; I don't mind that you're in love with Gale. I never loved him like that and I always wanted him to find happiness. You're good for him."

Since she'd turned the conversation serious, I keep it that way. "Are you okay, or going to be okay, with his involvement in the bombs that killed your sister? That's what he's most hesitant about, you know, that you see it every time you look at him."

"Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't," she admits. "But mostly when I look at him, I see how it used to be… how it's not anymore. That's what hurts the most, that things are different."

"I know what you mean," I agree, knowing the feeling all too well. "The question is, though, if it's starting to hurt less. If it is, that means maybe you'll be okay in the future, even if you aren't in the present."

Katniss stops walking and stares straight ahead. "It is starting to hurt less," she says after a minute, as if she can't quite believe the revelation she just had. She turns and looks at me. "Somebody must have told you that, because you sound like you believe it, who was it?"

"Mags." I start walking again, having caught the familiar scent of pine trees to the northwest. "It's too bad you didn't get to know her longer. But she told everyone who survived the Games just what I told you. Not all of us listened, some by choice. If you did, you were better off for it. Sometimes it's just harder to remember than others."

"Was Mags a mentor during my Games?" she asks me.

When I tell her that she was, she asks if I was a mentor that year. "Yes. So was Finnick, before you ask."

"Did you think I could win?"

I choke back a laugh, because it seems inappropriate, and shake my head. "No. Not when you were still in the Capitol, anyway. Once you got into the arena, my opinion of your chances increased."

"Did Finnick think I could win? And Mags?"

"Definite yes for Mags and probably for Finnick. Mags started yelling at Haymitch right away to take care of you and make sure that you didn't take taken advantage of. Finnick was different, though, because he never wanted to know the names of any tribute other than his own. He never asked your name," I admit, not making eye contact with her, "but he asked Peeta's name. He thought you had a chance together when the changed the rules, but mostly because Peeta was so obviously willing to die for you."

She considers that for a minute before she asks what I hope is her last question. "Did Haymitch think I could win?"

"Yes," I answer definitively. "No doubt about that. He was more sober than I'd ever seen him and he never left the room where the mentors monitor things unless it was to go get sponsorship money. Since he was the only mentor from 12, by the way, when he was getting money or sleeping, a couple people took turns helping him. Finnick, since his boy died at the Cornucopia, Seeder, after her girl died, and then Chaff at the end."

Katniss is quiet again, which I interpret to mean that she doesn't want to talk about the Games anymore. As luck would have it, I spot the tiny group of fir trees and give an excited yell to distract us both.

She laughs when I hug one of the trees, breathing deeply as I do.

"Shut up, brainless," I snap, even if I am unable to keep the happiness out of my voice. "I may not miss District 7, but I do miss the trees. I am so happy there are some here."

"I'll give you a moment alone with your trees," she tells me, waving her gloved hand toward the east. "I want to go look at something over there. I'll be right back."

I don't know what she's going to look at, I don't care what she's going to look at; all I know and care is that I have found trees that make me happy. Katniss can take care of herself and so can I. While she's gone, I explore the copse of trees. I get positively giddy when I realize that I can see the ledge I discovered with Gale from where I stand. It's taken more than twenty years, but life might finally be coming together for me.

Katniss finds me laughing hysterical because I'm so happy. She probably thinks I'm crazy but, to be honest, I hope I am. It's just easier that way.

By the time we chop down a tree and lug it all the way back to the Victor's Village, Rory and Vick have cleared a corner of the main room in Peeta's house – someone's decided that Christmas will be centered there – and Gale and Peeta get the tree standing there.

With my job done, I drift toward Annie and my godson. I don't waste any time in stealing him from his mother and making silly noises that he tries to copy.

Once the tree is standing, chaos ensues.

Unbeknownst to me, Haymitch had Effie Trinkett send arts and crafts type things from the Capitol and he declares that, having the read the book, it's time for all of us to make ornaments for the tree. Whether it's from lack of a reason to ever decorate anything as simple as a tree to make it pretty or it's from pure lack of artistic talent, we're all covered in glitter, paint, and glue within minutes. Haymitch and Hazelle even get covered even though they've apparently decided that they're the pseudo-parents in the group, don't make many ornaments and instead busy themselves with keeping Jack, and occasionally Posy, from accidentally ingesting anything.

Garlands, stars, bulbs, snowflakes, candles, chains, even popcorn strung together; we produce it all by the sloppy masses.

"You people are more decorated than the damn tree," Haymitch grumbles good-naturedly after a little while. "Never mind that the actual kids are neater than you three would-be adults."

"Shut up, Scrooge," Katniss orders him, having apparently read the book as well and proving it by mentioning the Charles Dickens character.

He throws a handful of popcorn at her and bounces Jack on his knee. "You only tell me to shut up when you know I'm right, sweetheart," he points out. "You know that, right?"

She ignores him and holds a small glass bulb for Peeta to apply glitter to.

"Did your girlfriend say when the toys would be here?" I ask Haymitch. We victors pooled some money and asked Effie to make sure that no child in District 12 would go without a toy from Santa Claus, who we were resurrecting in the form of Haymitch Abernathy in a red suit and white bird – only he didn't know it yet.

"She's not my girlfriend and yes, she said they'll be here tomorrow or the day after," he answers, scowling at me.

"Sure she isn't, Haymitch. She's Capitol and you fought to save her after the rebellion. Never mind that I know what you and Miss Trinkett did in the Capitol the last few years," I point out mischievously, earning looks of shock from Peeta and Katniss. "It's true," I tell them honestly, "your mentor and your chaperone spent a lot of time mentoring and chaperoning each other, if you know what I mean."

It all happens very fast after that. Peeta nods with a dramatic sort of solemnness, Katniss blushes a vivid red color, Annie giggles lightly, and Hazelle sighs as Vick asks Rory what that means.

"Sorry," I mouth to my boyfriend's mother as Haymitch splutters and stutters. To her credit, she forgives me easily without question.

"Effie is not my girlfriend," Haymitch finally manages to say to the kids he mentored in two games. "She's… my friend."

"With benefits," Gale mutters under his breath, making me spit milk out of my nose and making Haymitch groan loudly.

"Give me the baby, Haymitch, if you're going to get upset," Hazelle demands, taking Jack from him. "But I have to ask, so I know how much food to make, is Effie coming for our Christmas celebration?"

As Haymitch blushes, even Katniss dissolves into laughter. No one, though, is laughing loud enough not hear him when he says that she is … because she wants to see Peeta and Katniss.

Once we've all calmed down and caught our breath, we settle the final details of it all. Christmas is in five days. Katniss, Peeta, Gale, and I will help Haymitch pass out the toys to the children and then we'll be at the Hawthorne's for the rest of the day. President Paylor, Beetee, and Enobaria are coming two days after that. At least we get to do the fun stuff first.


	20. Chapter XX

**I don't own it.**

_I hope you like my take on Christmas in Panem!_

* * *

**LEARNING TO WALK HOME**

Chapter XX

On Christmas morning, District 12 is covered in three inches of fresh, fluffy snow. The world looks new, fresh, and reborn.

Haymitch grumbles about being cold as he puts on the red suit, but he still does it. We victors are laughing too hard at his outfit to pay much attention to his words anyway. "Well, do I look the guy in the book?" he asks as Effie Trinkett fluffs his fake beard a little bit more.

"Definitely," she says for us because we're all still laughing. "Is someone going along to explain to the children who you're supposed to be?"

"The Hawthorne boys are going to tell everyone that I am Santa Claus," he corrects her, joining us in reluctant laughter. "They'll tell the children who he _is_."

"Of course," she agrees, nodding as she fluffs the beard one last time. "Well, have fun."

I follow Haymitch out of the house, taking a bag filled with toys from Gale and leaving him to carry one. "She looks better without the Capitol wig, clothes, and makeup, Haymitch. I can see why she's your girlfriend," I tease him.

"Not while I'm wearing this, Mason," he snaps, swinging his own bag at me. "Later I will set you straight."

"Unless you're too busy playing Santa and Mrs. Claus with Effie," I squeal, ducking away from him and down the steps before he can catch me.

Gale grabs my arm before I can get too far and forces me to walk beside him. Peeta, Katniss, Gale, and I are going to town along with Haymitch and Gale's siblings and mother. Annie and Jack are staying behind with Effie and Katniss' mother, who came after all but isn't ready to face people she knew – other than Katniss, who is still walking on eggshells around her.

Gale stands on a wooden platform and gets the attention of the kids and their families that Bristel and Thom arranged in the town square at his request. He reads to them from the book, telling them the story of Christmas as it was written in the Bible and telling them about the man that every child apparently adored who wore a red suit and brought toys. The kids were drifting away after the first part but the second parts reels them back in.

Haymitch's appearance earns squeals of delight from the littlest kids, especially because they don't recognize him as the man who took kids to the Hunger Games and didn't bring them home. Rory and Vick take care of the older kids, psyching them up just as much and organizing them into line behind the littlest ones. They take turns sitting on Santa's lap and then Katniss and I give Haymitch a gift to give them.

It's like Parcel Day in every district everywhere, only it's better. It's better because the kids aren't getting excited over something necessary to their very survival. They're getting excited over frivolous things like toy trucks, beaded purses, archery sets, and dolls.

I don't even try to stop the tears that are falling down my cheeks.

This is what it was all for. This is what I was tortured for. This is what Finnick died for. This makes it all worth it. It means something now.

It's strange, though, that everyone is still there after the kids have their presents and the adults have received clothes or tools, something useful but still once frivolous, from Peeta and Gale. Posy, a little girl I've come to realize has absolutely no fear about anything, fixes the situation by scrambling onto the platform and whistling shrilly to bring the attention to herself. Once she has it, she starts to sing.

Annie's book had the lyrics to Christmas songs and Posy has apparently memorized them. We all have, to be honest. We have no idea if we're singing the right tune because music isn't something Panem citizens really needed to know, but we sang them anyway. In private. Now Posy's singing them in public. She grabs my hand and Katniss', pulling us to the front of the stage with her. She expects us to sing, so we do.

I even grab Haymitch's hand and pull him forward. Gale and Peeta join us seconds later and, when we're all on the platform, the rest of the crowd starts to sing. The songs aren't hard, especially the choruses, and it's easy for everyone to pick up on it.

"Lucky you were here, Posy," Gale says as the crowd starts to disperse and he picks her up. "That singing saved the day."

She only grins and drapes one thin arm around his neck.

"It's because people still think they have to be excused from gatherings," Rory speculates as he walks beside me. "Like at reapings and things. It'll be easier next year. No doubt."

"Kid's got a good point," Haymitch agrees, surprisingly still in full Santa gear. "And it wasn't as bad as I figured it'd be. I'll wear this again next year."

As we get back to the village, Katniss exhales deeply and murmurs to Peeta that Primrose would have loved what we just did. He hugs her and the rest of us pretend we didn't hear what she said as we leave them alone and head inside. Katniss' mother goes outside to her daughter and the boy I know she considers her son now.

That makes me happy, even if I am a little sad that I don't have a mother to hug me.

Hazelle hugs me as the thought crosses my mind. "Merry Christmas, Johanna," she murmurs as I hug her back. "I'm so thankful you're a part of my family now." I'm dangerously close to crying, again, when she saves me from it by pulling Gale into the hug. "I'm thankful that you're both here with me. Please don't leave again, either of you."

"You don't need to worry about that, Mom," he tells her softly. "I'm not going anywhere."

Thankfully for my growling stomach, the next thing on the agenda is dinner.

Happily, Katniss and her mother seem to have bonded, or reconnected, at some point and there is zero tension whatsoever during dinner. Even Annie smiles and laughs. More importantly, she doesn't cover her ears or zone out of the conversation, not once. I'm stupidly proud of her.

Then I'm surprised when Effie and Haymitch volunteer to clean up all the dirty dishes. Surprised, but uncomplaining. After all, I ate enough that the only thing I want to do is lie on the floor and rest. And that's what I do. Rest leads to sleep, though, and I don't complain about that either.

Not until someone lifts me up off the floor. "Wake up and go to sleep," Gale whispers in my ear.

I rub my eyes and look around the room. Other than us, the only people left are Katniss and Peeta. She's asleep on top of him and he looks strangely comfortable for being basically sitting up on a couch. "Everybody else went to bed?"

"Mm-hmm," he hums. "I set up a place for us in the attic so we don't have to go out in the snow."

"The attic?" I scrunch my nose and let him carry me up the stairs. "Isn't it cold up there?"

"I'll keep you warm," he promises in a whisper as we pass the other bedrooms. "Unless you don't want me to."

"No, please do," I beg shamelessly. "I'm already cold. Maybe I ate too much."

"You did eat a lot," he points out, kicking the door to the attic open and shutting it after we're inside, "but you're lying about being cold. You were almost sleeping in the fire."

"Fine, be an ass and don't keep me warm," I snap, turning my head as he tries to kiss me.

"Oh, I'm keeping you warm," he warns me, lying me down on a soft bed of blankets and hovering over me. "I'm keeping you very warm tonight."

I know what he means and I'm already burning up. "Can they hear us?"

"No. Vick and Posy were having an argument up here the other day. I cleared up all the broken stuff, but I never heard them arguing. So just be kind of loud, okay?" As if to test me, he nips at my ear.

I writhe against him and we're both undressed in seconds. "Is the door locked?" I ask, thinking of it at the wrong, and right moment.

"Yes, Johanna," he says with weary patience. "Now be quiet and sleep or be quiet and kiss me. Your choice."

"Kissing," I decide easily, "always kissing."

"Good answer, Mason," he says with his mouth over mine.

In the end, I don't know how quiet we are because I'm much, much too busy thinking about other things. When we're through, I hope I was quiet, but I don't really care. It's a lovely feeling, to be honest.

Before I fall into a blissful sleep, I blurt out the words I never thought I'd say. "I love you, Gale."

He leans to kiss me, strangely chastely given what we've just done and what I just said, and cups his hand around my chin. "I love you too, Johanna."

It's not strange anymore. It's perfect. I don't want anything to ever be different again. I'm terrified that I'll lose him, but I'm ecstatic that I have him.


	21. ChapterXXI

**I don't own this.**

_Just one more chapter after this! So sad and yet happy at the same time!_

* * *

**LEARNING TO LIVE AGAIN**

Chapter XXI

"How close to you want me to stay?" Gale whispers in my ear while we stand waiting for President Paylor, Beetee, and Enobaria to get off the train.

"Close," I whisper back. "Like close enough that I can reach out and touch you if I need to."

He takes a step forward, so that he's now so close behind me that I can feel his breath on my neck. I know there will be cameras and I know there will be speculation about my proximity to Gale, but I don't care. I love him and that's what is most important.

"You okay, Johanna?" Haymitch asks from his spot on my right.

We're the only victors greeting the President; Katniss, Peeta, and Annie are waiting for her in the Victor's Village and will only appear on television. I suppose I could've stayed behind too, but I'm used to all this. I've been a mentor and I've been featured on the televisions of Panem. I can do this.

As the doors of the train slide open, I wonder idly if I'll seem different to the people who might remember me. I never played up to what Snow wanted me to be, so I always came across as the cocky, careless victor from District 7. I wonder if, now that Snow is dead and I've let myself fall in love, I'll be different.

I don't even have anybody to ask about that later.

I reach back and squeeze Gale's hand as Paylor walks up to me and Haymitch.

"Before you say anything," she tells him, "I understand why the others aren't here and I'm perfectly fine with it. They'll still be on the broadcast, right?"

"Mm-hmm," he hums, seeming surprised by her words. "Plutarch didn't come."

It's hard not to see the grimace that flickers briefly across Paylor's weary face. "I suggested now might be an ideal time for him to arrange a talent program he's been thinking of producing – no victors required."

"Good to hear," Haymitch says, much more at ease already. Knowing the cameras are on him, he turns to Beetee and Enobaria. "Enobaria, Beetee, welcome to District 12."

Beetee, the little weasel, immediately monopolizes Haymitch and leaves me to talk to Enobaria. She, however, wants to talk to someone else – Gale. When she adjusts her shirt to show more cleavage, my blood boils. In the blink of an eye, I've got her arm twisted behind her back, but I'm still smiling for the cameras and it probably looks like we're doing nothing more than hugging awkwardly. "Keep your bloody little paws of him, Enobaria," I hiss through my smile, "unless you'd rather go without a paw or two."

Her eyes are wide but she nods once, and I let her go.

Gale chuckles softly behind me and reaches out to rub my waist soothingly.

President Paylor clears her throat, watching me and glancing at Haymitch – he only shrugs. "Shall we tour the town and then head to the village?" she asks.

I'm shocked, completely shocked, when Enobaria's tough girl façade cracks when we pass the meadow and Haymitch explains that it's being used as a mass grave for the thousands of people who didn't make it out of District 12 before the firebombing. She actually starts crying. Not loud, gasping sobs but tears trail down her cheeks and her shoulders shake. I know she can hide emotion better than anyone so her for her to be letting go in front of the cameras that are following us means it's real.

As sad as it is, maybe she's coming around too.

I let her be, though, knowing that what she needs most is time.

When the tour of the town is finished, we walk to the Victor's Village. President Paylor orders the camera crew to remain in the town, and to help with something, until they're sent for by her directly. When one protests that Plutarch had told them to never let her out of their sights, she silences them with a wearied wave of her hand and walks away.

I like her.

Katniss, Peeta, and Annie are waiting for us in Peeta's house – it having been deemed the cleanest and least damaged by tantrums. Paylor asks Gale if he'd mind letting her talk to the victors alone and, despite my urge to hold onto him more tightly, I let him go.

She tells us first that if Plutarch bothers us about anything that we don't want to do, go directly over his head to her. I take that to mean that Plutarch will be bothering us. She goes on to say that we will still receive our victor's pay and tells us bluntly that she believes it would upset the country if the victors that they know and care about were to turn the money down, so we agree. The last bit of business related to money is that President Snow, inexplicably, had a fund set up to pay victors that still contains a ridiculously large amount of money. Our choices are either to take the money ourselves, give it to any family or descendants of the victors who died in the rebellion, or spread it among the districts based on need.

We vote for the third option, and I'm elected to oversee the fund. I'm not too bothered by the responsibility because I know Gale will help me when I need it.

Beetee's going to keep working on communications systems in Panem, trying to better connect the country. He promises to visit District 12 as much as he can.

Enobaria, thinking like Annie had, tells us something she read about the ancient Olympic Games and suggests it might be a way to bind the country together – having children compete for medals in sports, simply to be the best and not to live the longest. Since she suggests it, she's put in charge of it.

Annie asks for and is granted permission to live as quiet a life as possible in District 12. Paylor's holding Jack when she gives it, and tells Annie not to forget the sea that Finnick loved so much. We all promise to make sure Annie goes back to District 4 as much as she's willing.

Haymitch will remain as the coordinator in District 12 and, even more importantly, be charged with making sure that the rest of us, especially Katniss and Peeta, heal from our wounds. He's not the likeliest candidate for the job, but I think caring for others gives him a purpose in sanity in life that he doesn't otherwise have.

Peeta is bothered that he's not yet ready to do something important, but Paylor tells him to be patient and get well. She promises, we all promise, that when he's ready, he can do whatever he wants.

Paylor also releases Katniss from actual confinement to District 12, telling her that it's been made clear what President Coin intended and that the people of Panem are not happy that "their Mockingjay" is being confined for helping free them from someone not so much worse than Snow.

None of us think that she'll be traveling the country anytime soon, but at least she could if she wanted to.

With all of that housekeeping out of the way, we move on to possibly harder things – planning our joint television appearance. It's clear that some of us are in no condition to speak and it's equally as clear that there are some of us the country wants to see more than others. Paylor suggests we do it fairly, each writing down what we'd say on camera but not putting our names on it. We'll read all the speeches and vote on the two most important. Whoever wrote them will deliver them.

We're quiet for a long time, and then we pass the papers.

Paylor collects our ballots and tells us who will speak.

Haymitch will explain why we fought and I will explain why the fight's not over just yet. Or maybe ever.

I flee the house in search of Gale.

President Paylor finds me in his arms a few minutes later. "He's Katniss' cousin and a major face in the rebellion, Johanna," she tells me gently, "no one will think anything of him being on camera with us."

I decide then that I really like her as President of Panem.

We're filming in the morning, so I tug on Gale's hand. "Help me take a bath?" I ask uncertainly.

"Always, Johanna," he murmurs, scooping me off my feet and carrying me into the closest bathroom.

I don't do anything over the next two hours. Gale does everything. He fills the tub, massages me as I sit in the steaming water, carefully scrubs every inch of my body, rinses me off, wraps me in a thick towel, and carries me to bed.

I don't sleep that night, but not for fear of nightmares. I don't sleep because I don't want to wake up and have it been only a dream.

I wake up in the morning to find that Katniss' prep team has arrived to make us all look right for the cameras, as if we couldn't comb our own hair.

My spite fades away quickly, though, because it's kind of nice to be pampered again. I refuse a bath, though, because they're talented enough to make my hair look right without me having to get wet first.

During the night, someone set up a backdrop in Peeta's backyard. The new symbol of Panem is much more cheery and less… industrial than the old. We're arranged into our places by Paylor herself. Gale, Annie, Paylor, Enobaria, and Beetee will sit on high stools. Me, Peeta, Katniss, and Haymitch will sit on regular chairs in front of them. Haymitch and I will speak from where we sit.

Haymitch goes first, but I don't hear much of what he says because I'm focused on what I have to say.

I know it's my turn when Gale squeezes my shoulder.

I can't remember a word of what I wrote yesterday. But I need to say something, so I do.

"There are no more Hunger Games," I begin, "and there's no more need for the people of this nation to live in hunger and sorrow and fear anymore. For that, every one of us should be grateful. I know I am. I know that we seven surviving victors are all grateful.

"But our sacrifices, and yours, are not to ever be taken lightly. We have to be vigilant that nothing and no one ever try to return us to the life we lived for seventy-five years.

"The first step in doing that is simple; we have to live. Some of us don't how, but we can learn.

"That's what I'm doing, that's what all of us are doing. We're learning to live again. And we can't ever stop."

My original speech was much longer, but I'm done. Gale leans forward and quickly kisses my cheek as President Paylor starts to speak. "I'm proud of you, Mason," he whispers in my ear.

Knowing my microphone is of, I answer him. "I'm only here because of you, you're teaching me to do what I just said I'm doing. Thank you."


	22. Chapter XXII

**I don't own this.**

_THANK YOU all so much for reading this far into this story! It really means a lot to me._

_I really hope you think this epilogue does the story as much just as I thought it did as I wrote it. I've heard that I sometimes end my fanfiction stories on a whimper instead of a bang and I don't think I did that here. I hope. _

_Anyway, tell me what you think and thank you!_

* * *

**LEARNING TO LIVE AGAIN**

Epilogue

Ten years pass quickly, too quickly. They aren't filled with fear and trepidation, though, and for that everyone is grateful.

Panem rebuilds herself to be better than she ever was.

The people want to forget and rebuild and move on. And they do.

In our little corner of District 12, things evolve have evolved well.

I am so proud of Gale. Paylor, Plutarch, Beetee… they all wanted Gale to take a more public role in some way or another but he refused almost everything. All he's done is to work for District 12. He officially took over the duties that had been given to Haymitch and has basically rebuilt District 12. There's a medicine factory now, a school, a small hospital… People come here to vacation in the woods.

Part of that appeal, of course, is Katniss. Having her mother here has helped her so much. She still spends a lot of time in the woods, but she's better for it because she's teaching people to love the woods as her father taught her to love them. There are places she won't take anyone, places too important to her, but no one blames her for that.

Peeta bakes. It's not just therapy anymore, though. There are still needy families and he focuses on them first. No parent worries they won't be able to feed their children, they know they can go to him for anything. Every child under eight gets a small cake for their birthday too. I hang out at the bakery sometimes just to watch their faces light up.

Peeta still has moments when he teeters on the edge. He hasn't tried to kill Katniss, though, and she can pull him back with a kiss or even just wrapping her arms around him.

Peeta, Annie, and I find time at least once a week to be alone with just each other. The scars that we got from the Capitol will never completely go away and just knowing that there are two other people who understand makes it all somehow better.

Annie is one of the things surprises me most. She's flourishing.

She takes Jack to District 4 once a year for the month that encompasses Finnick and Jack's birthdays. It's their private time. Sometimes she takes the rest of us there to vacation by the ocean.

More than that, though, she's helping Haymitch and Effie Trinkett, mostly Effie, put together a Hunger Games Remembrance Museum. She researches, she interviews people, she puts displays together… and it doesn't break her. It makes her stronger. When I asked her why, she told me that if people forgot, if they were allowed to forget, they'd just do it all over again. So she's reminding them.

I'm so proud of her.

I'm proud of Haymitch too. He drinks, but he's never drunk. We've all leaned on him so much, and he's never let us down. Not once. Ever.

He's found some happiness too. He married Effie seven years ago, and she's very pretty without the Capitol makeup and wigs and clothes – too pretty for him, he says. He was happy then, but still himself. And then Effie told him she was pregnant. He cried for days. And that was nothing compared to when Rose, named after Katniss' sister with the permission of both Everdeens, was born.

She's four now, and she's the very definition of a daddy's girl.

As far as the other children around me go, there's Jack. If he looked like Finnick as a baby, he is Finnick now. He's charming and thoughtful and helpful. When Annie sometimes covers her ears, he's by her side in an instant and her hands go down with little more than a word. Gale taught him to fish in the lakes and rivers in the woods and Jack has a little gang of four friends who keep us all in fish. He's working on building his own tiny boat now, and trying to convince Annie it's a seaworthy vessel. She doesn't believe him yet, but there's no doubt it will be soon. His prized possession, though, is a child-sized trident in found in the Victor's Village in District 4. There's no doubt who it once belonged to.

Rory, now twenty-two, is living in the Capitol while he trains to be a doctor. He plans to come back to where he was born and be a doctor here. Hazelle told me once that he never showed any interest in academics until Katniss' sister died. It's clear to all of us that he's going to be a doctor because she never got the chance. And because he still loves her.

Vick, twenty now, is a teacher at the school here. It's our theory that the books Gale bought him made him realize how much he never got the chance to learn and he's determined to change that for the children of today.

Posy is fourteen now, and she had her heart broken by a boy for the first time just yesterday. She cried on me for hours last night. Old Johanna might have told her that boys aren't worth the trouble, but new Johanna learned ten years ago that they are. So I asked her if she was crying because she cared about him or because he embarrassed her by kissing another girl. When she told me it was the second, I told her that there were better fish in the sea.

I meant it as a cliché but, this morning when Jack found out that she'd been upset by a boy, he gallantly offered to marry her right then and there to protect her from all the other idiots. So maybe she found her fish. She kissed him, and he blushed, but there wasn't a wedding.

Not yet, anyway. Posy adores Jack as much as he adores her and four years isn't such a big age difference – it's almost the same as me and Gale – and they are both wise beyond their years so I don't think anyone would be surprised if we have to call her Posy Odair in another ten years. I know I won't.

I am ridiculously proud of my step-siblings. They became the only children I'll ever have nine months after President Paylor's first visit to District 12.

Hazelle was diagnosed with breast cancer and got bad very fast. She asked me to help Gale take care of the kids. She didn't ask me to marry him, but I did. My mother never saw me do anything, there was no way I was letting Hazelle die without seeing at least one of her children married and as happy as he could be. I knew she'd feel better too, knowing that I made the commitment to Gale, and to Rory, Vick, and Posy.

She died a week later.

I still wish every day that she was here with us. And I'm eternally grateful for her family.

They saved me, they taught me to live again.

**THE END**


End file.
